Christmas & New Year 2012

Christmas 2012 - very calm! This year there wasn't all that hassle with travelling between the countries: Norway-Germany-Italy-Norway or v v. within short time. While Marco went home to Italy, this year I spent as much as 16 days entirely at home in Germany :-) Time just for me, myself, my to-do list and last but not least for and with my family :-) I haven't even really spent much time with friends. Also the fact that we had agreed on not making presents this year turned these holidays considerably to stress free days.

Just before leaving for Germany on the 18th of December, I had spent 4 days with the girls on a Christmas market trip to Leipzig in Germany (click here for the post), the evening immediately after my return to Oslo Marco and I had tickets for the Nobel Peace Prize Concert here in Oslo (here is the post) and in addition to that we were in those days taking over our new common flat - which meant a weekend of moving. All that right before Christmas. So the tranquility of the festivities and the days off was really welcome.

Christmas eve was as usual at my mum's place. This year we had invited a couple of dear friends to join us on Christmas eve. Their children are living all very far away (2 in Australia) and thus they were going to have a lot of company. Christmas started with some tea and freshly baked Christmas cookies.

Later in the evening we switched over to some yummy meat fondue. Always a great thing to have on Christmas.

 

In the past the 25th and 26th of December were celebrated with the bigger families from my mum's and my father's side including grandparents. On my mum's side, since my grandmother's death 9 years ago, there were no longer the big family gatherings. However, at least on my father's side we had always gathered to celebrate Christmas together. But this year all was different as my grandmother had just died in October and my father left with his wife on skiing holidays over the festivities. So I even spent both Christmas days at home.
While my brother celebrated the 25th at his girlfriend's place, we didn't do anything big, especially we were all three (my mum, her husband and me) not really in top form with reg. to health.
On the 26th, then, we had my mum's husband's kids with their partners over and we had - of course, it's Christmas! - a lot of food: warm apple strudle with custard and ice cream in the afternoon and even more good food in the evening (potato dumplings with red cabbage and roulades plus Lebkuchen ice cream).

The day after the Christmas celebrations there was a nice concert in the beautiful Cologne Cathedral. It was the famous Christmas Oratorio of Johann Sebastian Bach - which I had just attended to a couple of weeks ago when I went with Jana, Audrey and Sarah to Leipzig. However, it's a very classical concert and nice to listen to - and even to compare the two concerts.

Between Christmas and New Year I celebrated with my friend Sarah her 31st birthday. Since in previous years I had always left Germany after Christmas to travel for the end of the year down to Sicily, I had never been there at Sarah's birthday. But this year I was finally able to join her party :-) It was really a pleasure for me.

For New Year's Eve I was a little uninspired about what to do. Also my brother had no plans of travelling as he usually had in the past years. Since he was really eager in having me with him and his friends - thanks, Max :-) - I joint their celebrations at our place. My parent's had left us the house to celebrate with friends of theirs so Max had invited a bunch of friends over. Though the girls were pretty much going for the idea of having raclette that evening, they were overruled by the majority of the rather carnivorous males in the group. Thus on the menu we had: BBQ!!!

In the course of the evening we entertained each other with our vocal talents and the help of PlayStation SingStar and even gave it a try to the Gangnam Style.

Well, what else to say about the celebrations of young people on a 31st of December...?!

Thanks, Max, for having me with you on this nice evening!

Only 3 days later it was time to leave and get back to Oslo. I had my flight on Thusday 3rd of January. I knew I was going to buy some things and take some things from home in Germany back to Norway, but I had arrived in Germany in December with one mid-sized suitcase with a weight of 7kg - and I found myself on the way back to Oslo with a totally new set of three suitcases, filled until their maximum with new clothes, shoes, and tons of household articles (among others: waffle baking machine, pans, a scale, serving cutlery, kilos of baking utensils, cooking books and much more) weighing some 50 kg in total... No wonder I had to take a taxi when arrived in Oslo...

However, it all found its place in our new apartment :-)

So, let's start the new year 2013! May it be a good one for everyone of you!!!