Christmas has come and gone

Yes Christmas has come and gone with lots of things in between. The Christmas season started with festive decorating as always. Snow village, angels, snowflakes, manger and of course our tree with colored lights!

Luckily this year Søren and I had my mom visiting for Christmas, she came already on December 11th to celebrate Søren's birthday! We had a nice and small family party to celebrate Søren turning 25!
Søren's birthday party!

As it turned out I had a free week just before Christmas while Mom was here so we took a 5 day trip to Italy! We spent time in Milan, Venice and a small town called Bergamo. The weather was quite chilly and wasn't optimal for walking around outside all day but it didn't stop us from seeing the sights! There were many highlights of the trip but here are some of the favorites: 1)Walking up from the subway station the first night and seeing the gigantic Duamo Catherdral all lit up in front of us, it was truly a beautiful sight. 2)Venice! It is a such a beautiful place to begin with, but with all the Christmas lights it was just spectacular. We enjoyed walking around in the maze like streets at night just taking in the atmosphere and ducking into a few shops now and then to get warm. 3) Bergamo the upper city. The city is actually built on a hill and it looks gorgeous from down below but also from up above looking down, we were in awe of all the beautiful old architecture!

Duamo Cathedral
Venice!

Bergamo from the Upper City looking down at the Lower City.

We returned from Italy to a huge snow storm in Denmark. For the first time in 14 years Denmark had a white Christmas! I personally have enjoyed it very much, it just doesn't feel like winter without snow, but we have had our moments of being quite tired of the snow. For example, we were supposed to have a big Christmas concert for the students and their families the last day of school, but because of the snow we had to cancel it. So instead of just staying in that night we decided to go out to eat. We headed out in the snow and made it there just fine, but on the way back just a mere 250 yards from our house we began to slide and ended up going into the ditch and hitting a well grounded sign! Agh, we ended up having to get the schools tractor to tow us out and then bring it in for repair the next day because the entire front bumper (that is plastic) was in pretty bad shape. Lucky for us it was just before the holiday season so they said that we would have to wait until after January. So they lent us a car, that we have now had for 20 days and counting... Here is a picture of our little rental (and no it is not a smartcar but pretty close!)
Toyota Agyo
Snow!

Luckily we were able to fit all the Christmas presents in our new tiny car and headed off to our church in Skjern the morning of December 24th. We had a wonderful service where Søren and I both played. I was able to suprise my mom and sing a solo of O' Holy Night, it was very special. Then we headed off to Esbjerg where we would spend Christmas with our Moms! The four of us made a nice dinner of pork roast, duck, potatoes....and of course for dessert the famous ris ala mánde. The tradition is that there is one whole almond in the tapioca like dish and whoever finds it gets a gift. And guess who won? Mom! She was very happy! We had a nice dinner and afterwards danced around the tree singing English and Danish Christmas songs. Then we proceeded to unwrap presents for over and hour before heading to the midnight church service. To wrap up a great and relaxing Christmas Eve we called the Brown family and talked to them!

Dancing around the tree

We spent the night in Esbjerg and spent Christmas day there as well. During the day we just relaxed, napped and ate! Søren's sister Ulla and her family came for dinner and then we had dice present game afterwards! Then we went home and found that Santa had visited the 3 of us. We spent the rest of the evening opening all gifts he had so thoughtfully given us, including a lot of Christmas tree ornaments and an Ipod touch for us both! Another enjoyable Christmas with love and laughter.
Stockings!

Mom didn't have to go home until the 29th so we spent th days after Christmas visiting friends and family. On the 26th we were up in Århus visiting Søren's dad, after getting stuck in a major traffic jam on the freeway, we spent the afternoon in the Old Town of Århus looking at all the old buildings and learning about old Danish Christmas traditions.
In the old town!

The 27th we visited our good friends Jette and Carl, it was wonderful that my Mom got to see so much of my everyday life and friends! Suddenly it was the 29th and Mom had to leave already, we drove her to the airport and said goodbye, it was hard but nice that we don't have to wait a whole year to see her again!

Søren and I were able to relax, catch up on some school work, write some songs for our school musical and just spend some nice time together before we went back to school after the new year. We also had a great New Years Eve with Thorkild + Rasmus and their significant others! We had a great dinner, saw lots of fireworks and played guitar hero and singstar until the 4am. Oh to be young again!

Other than that we are back into the swing if things. Søren is back student teaching and I am back to teaching music! We are getting ready for our big musical at school in a few weeks, so preparations are keeping us busy, but we love it!

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year to you all!