A Christmas Market in Texas?

In New Braunfels, not too far from us there was a German Christmas Market.  They had a few food items that were tested and found to be fairly authentic by our family.  It was a fun little family adventure.

Belguim Christmas Market #8

Oops!  I found another post that's out of order.  This is from before Christmas.

Godfather playing cards with the boys

The curls and the dimples are making this boy so irresistible that he's maybe a tad spoiled now.  Boss Baby may have become Baby Monster in the month of December.  I'm being super strict with him, but so far he's still a monster two year old.

On Saturday, the day before Christmas Eve, we went to Belgium for a Christmas Market.  We had some amazing hot chocolate.  I'm telling you, it was so thick, you wondered if there was any milk in it at all.  Like drinking melted (Belgian!) chocolate.

Here we are eating french fries with cheese curds and gravy on top.  Delicious!  If you can find yourself some cheese curds, try it out!  

There was a sledding hill with Astro-turf.  I was a little nervous to let Judah do it and really put my foot down about Bob not doing it.  Judah went down once and it scared him enough not to do it again.  I was very proud of how brave he was and he stayed on the sled the whole way down.  I was afraid he'd let go and roll down the Astro-turf which sounded like a painful thing to do.  Hannah wouldn't do it, but Genna, Isaac, and Drew took turns with the two sleds we rented for fifteen minutes and slid down as many times as they could.

Then before we left the Ferris Wheel was calling our names.  We all went and took up two buckets.

Brian was very happy they let him on with his Belgian beer.  I think if he was a hash tagger, his trademark hash tag would be #cantdothisinamerica.

Believe it or not, we left and drove straight to a Christmas party.  There was gingerbread house decorating, food, Christmas carols, and even party favors.  Fancy and fun!

Meisenheim Christmas Market #6

On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, we started the day with Mass.  Driving to church it started rainy.  It had been partly sunny when we left the house.  When we walked into church it had just changed from rain to snow.  Coming out of church the ground was covered in about a half inch of snow.  In a normal car with normal tires that's not a problem, but in my giant rear wheel drive van with questionable quality tires awaiting replacement (takes forever to get parts for this over here) it is a little nerve wracking.  We were late to Brian's Christmas party as it was and the traffic was bad because of the sudden dump of snow.  Luckily, there were no really steep inclines on the way and we made it safe and sound to the party.

After the party, the sun had melted the roads and the snow looked as if it was gone.  We went home and changed for the next Christmas market.  It was still very cold, so we dressed in lots of layers.  Hannah really didn't want to go, and Drew and Judah were also asking to stay home.  She ended up babysitting them while the rest of us took Brian's mom to the market.  It was about 30 minutes away. 

One of the first stalls was a couple of Germans who sang country music and loved Texas.  We stopped to chat with them.  His first words were, "Texas is the best place on earth."  This market was full of woodwork crafts.  We got a couple of candles made of wood and a candle holder carved out of a tree trunk.  There was various live music all along the walk through the Christmas market.  At the very last stall I found myself a nice winter hat since Genevieve has taken over my hat from last year and she looks too beautiful in it for me to take it back.

Speaking of taking my clothes, it looks like that day has finally arrived.  Hannah wore my shirt to the Christmas party.

Christmas Market Buddies

It started snowing as we were already walking to the van and the drive home was rough.  It's dumping snow that fast these days.

Weilerbach, Christmas Market #5

Nanna and Genevieve

Brian's mom, AKA Nanna, came specifically for Christmas markets, and so Brian was going to squeeze as many in as possible for her.  Monday evening, there was a market close to our house that is a good one, not too small.   We bundled up and met Brian there after basketball practice for a festival dinner.  They had a loaded Christmas hamburger with pear-bacon chutney and onions that was pretty amazing.  We got three of those and shared them.  Then we got an Irish meat plate that was just as good as last year to share.  Some of the kids shared some salmon sandwiches and probably other stuff that I don't remember.  Everyone had hot chocolates or Mexican punch or Gluwein.  These things are all about the food, you know!

There were a few shopping stalls and live music as well.  Bobby LOVED the live music!

My Bob Lamb enjoying the live music.

Judah enjoying the hot chocolate!

The next day, while I got an oil change and a tire check, Nanna and I  (plus Bobby!) went to a Christmas Bazaar to do some Christmas shopping.  We had coffee and lunch and even had time for a grocery stop before picking up the boys from Kindergarten.  It was a full day.

We fed the children kid food for dinner, and the adults went out to a late dinner at the most preciously decorated restaurant ever about 20 mins from us, the Pfalzer Hof.  The Christmas decor was really too cute.  I had a delicious salad and we all ordered fancy, unique desserts.  A gingerbread parfait, a speculos tiramisu, and panne cotte with orange sauce.  They were all delicious, but the tiramisu may have been the best.

Lichtenburg, Christmas Market #4: Snowy Edition

We started the day with Mass and then swung by the Landstuhl Christmas market to pick up food for lunch on our way to Genevieve's basketball game.  (Hannah's game had to be missed because it was earlier and further away.)  After her game, we drove 45 minutes straight to a castle to go to the Christmas market.  However, by the time we got there it was pretty snowy and they were not letting people park at the castle on the hill.  They were doing shuttles in a "bus" that was smaller than our van.  They only held 8 people each and the line was really long.  After standing in line for about 15 minutes I start thinking this is a really bad idea.  I don't mind going out in the cold with the kids if we have a quick exit strategy, but if the line to get on the shuttle to go up is an hour or so long, then it will be close to the same coming down.  This didn't sound like a good plan to me.  Brian insisted on going since we'd driven all that way.  After a 20 minute discussion, finally I took all the littles and Hannah with me and went home.  My plan was to come back and get them after I got the kids set up for dinner.

However, that plan was changed when I drove all the way home on the snowy roads and then got stuck going up the hill to our house.  I managed to get out of the way, pulling over to the side and ooching up as far as I could manage so it looked like traffic could pass me.  We got out and walked the rest of the way, but a person driving by insisted that my van was not enough out of the way (though he got by just fine) so I said I'd come back and shovel myself out without the kids.

A good friend offered to send her husband to pick up Brian, Nanna, Genevieve, and Isaac.  I grabbed a shovel and went back to the van.  I was really close to the top and then it would be all down hill, so I decided I'd shovel myself tracks up to the top.  A neighbor came out though and salted the road in front of my tires.  I was then able to drive up the rest of the way and made it home.  The whole thing was very stressful and a mess.  I wish, wish, wish, this van was better suited for winter weather driving.

Nanna arrives and goes to her first (#3 for us this year) Christmas market.

And just a few days later, Nanna arrived Saturday morning right before Advent started, so while Brian was away picking her up from the airport, we decorated for Advent.  We put out the stockings, the Nativity scenes, the Jesse Tree, the Advent wreath, and some tinsel.  Then I put out our Advent boxes.  I finally found three more for the youngest three kids.  Now everyone has one!

They certainly do take up a lot of room, but the kids love them.  They had to cover Brian's new bar and the top of his old glass case too.

We had to move this, bar and all, once we got our tree, because this is the only place it would fit.

That afternoon we went to the Christmas market in the neighboring village where the boys go to Kindergarten.  I brought pizza waffle batter to donate for the kindergarten's fundraiser stall.  It was a small Christmas market with only a few stalls.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay for the Christmas performance that the kindergarten children were doing because we had to get the kids and Nanna home and head to Brian's Christmas dinner with his lab.  But, before we left, St. Nicholas made an appearance and gave all the kids baggies of chocolate and an orange.

Christmas Market in a Cave: Sounds cool, right?

Spoiler Alert!  Major Disappointment!

This is actually an old church converted into a restaurant called "The Church."  Ummm, something is very wrong here.

Thanksgiving was uneventful as we had a close friend over and then another family that we are very close to as well.  It was low key and not too stressful.  Brian smoked a turkey and fried one too.  I stayed home from Mass since I was needing a little more rest and chance to make the last dish that the kids did not do.  The next day we left for a trip.  We met up with different friends in Holland for these famous cave Christmas markets.

Although I had heard one friend say she didn't like them and it was more like a mall than a Christmas market, we thought it was worth a try.  Turned out to cost around 60 Euros just to get in.  We had been waiting to eat and it was 1:30 or 2pm before we actually walked into the cave and the oldest children and the adults were starving.  (I had fed the little people some PB&J's in the van.)  There was a food stand outside of the cave and I thought that was weird.  Why have food outside the cave Christmas market?  After all, what else is there to these markets if not for the food and drinks?

Turns out this market was not all about the food, but all about the shopping instead, and it had only two food stalls at the very end of the cave.  We were famished, we almost didn't care that the only food choices were pre-made waffles or mediocre hot dogs.  

One might think, "Well, at least there was Christmas shopping!"  But one should be warned that said "shopping" was for mostly dollar store and Made for TV quality items.  There were a couple genuine gift stalls along the way, but still nothing like the real Christmas markets.  On top of all that, they tried to charge for something else every time you'd turn around, for bathroom breaks, selfies, etc.

Some of the walls were decorated, painted, etc which was pretty.

After a very long day of walking through two caves, we decided to try out the local above ground Christmas market that didn't cost money just to be in to find some food for dinner.

Ran into Santa while we were there.

After looking around a bit, we all went to our hotel rooms for the night.  The next morning, we headed back home and saw a rainbow on our way.  That was our 2nd Christmas market of the season.