This Christmas

I know, I know...some of you are looking at the title of this post and yelling because you think it's entirely too early to be writing a post about Christmas. Keep in mind though, the official Christmas music season (according to Miriam and myself) kicks off in exactly 19 days. Yes, you heard correctly! On October 1st, I will play an assortment of my Christmas favorites, just because I can. But that's totally not what this post is about!

Anyone who knows me knows that I.love.Christmas. Last year, I bought the very first Christmas tree from Lowes. In fact, it didn't have the price tag on it, and they were still unloading half of the shipment from the truck. If you look in our spare closet and wonder what could possibly be in the 6 blue rubbermaid tubs, I'll give you one guess! Yep, they're full of Christmas decorations! 6 tubs, huh? And we live in a 1100 square foot apartment. I love walking through stores and hotel lobbies and houses decorated for the season. There's just something magical and wonderful about Christmas. But my favorite part has always been the Christmas Eve church service. I love walking through the cold into a warm church to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

This year, I am especially excited about Christmas because Charlie and I will be spending it in GERMANY! This has been a dream for Charlie and I to visit. His mom's family is from Germany, so he has always wanted to visit the "vaterland." I, of course, am drawn to the castles, cuckoo clocks, chocolate cake, and Christmas decorations!!!! (Wow...I just noticed my incredible use of alliteration in that last sentence!) It is so exciting for us to finally be able to travel to a place that we have yearned to see for so long, and at Christmas, nonetheless. Does it really get any better than that?!?

I thought I would give you a little taste of some of the must-see-because-I-have-dreamed-about-this-for-years sights:

Neuschwanstein Castle, which will hopefully be covered in snow!

The largest cuckoo clock in the world in Triberg

The Kristkindlmarkt in Munich

My mom is the greatest. I told her last week that we would be gone over Christmas, and she was so excited for us, even though we wouldn't be with the family. When Charlie and I went to their house last weekend, we had an early Christmas present waiting for us. Mom had bought me a German Christmas carousel after Christmas last year, and she was intending to give it to me for Christmas this year. I brought it home and decided that I would keep it out until we left for our adventure! I couldn't get a very good picture of mine, but it looks something like this:

This is a traditional German Christmas decoration that is powered from the heat of the candles. Just like cuckoo clocks, they can be simple or VERY elaborate:

We are also planning on doing a little passport stamping by doing a quick drive through Austria, Italy, Liechenstein, Switzerland, and France. I am furiously devouring Rick Steve's travel guide as we plan and plot our adventure. I still can't believe that we're actually going! So now that I've rambled long enough, gute Nacht!