Christmas, Trier, and Happy New Year!

Another good Christmas at the Kress house.

We enjoyed it at home, relaxing.

 Burning the candle Max made at the Christmas market in Stuttgart

 Oh yeah- sugar rush!  That's what Christmas is all about!

 American sauce?  What?

We had our traditional Prime Rib dinner

We did our traditional nativity play

 Emma the Angel

 Dad- Joseph

 Sam- wiseman, sheep, King Herod (he is multi-talented)

 Joseph- Wiseman

 Max- shepherd

Mom- Mary with my child, baby Jesus, played by Chocolate Chip the dog who is wrapped in swaddling camo and laid in a Reisenthal manger

and opened one present on Christmas eve.  This year it wasn't pajamas.  This year I found a place that wood burned names on wooden swords and things.  I bought the boys all swords with their names.  Sam and Max's said, "Sir Samuel" and "Sir Maxwell."  Joseph's said, "King Joseph."  Joseph has always been King Joseph since Sam made him the king when he was 3 years old.  Max wasn't impressed that Joseph's got to say king on it, however!
  Emma got a keyboard.  I had been looking for one for awhile to replace the baby grand we couldn't bring with us.  I found the one I wanted, but Amazon would't send it overseas and I couldn't guarantee it was dual voltage, so I didn't want to buy it from Amazon.de.   Luckily, we found one (not the one I actually wanted, but oh well) at the PX last minute.  Emma tried to play all the songs that we sung during our play.  She did a great job for not having anything for over 6 months to practice on! 

 Waiting to be let around the corner.  Sam and Emma had to pass by the tree before they got to our room, but they closed their eyes.  Sam even blind-folded himself and ran into a few things on the way!

 Aca-believe it!

 Opening a family present together

Joseph reading Astrix and Obelix.  I love that they love the things we were into as kids!  Sam says he wants to get them all!

A couple days after Christmas we decided to go see some sites and visited Trier with some friends. 

Roman Column- I can't believe they let you just climb all over them, but they do.

I say we went with friends in a very loose sense of the words, because our friends left without us and we never caught up with them on the road.  We met up with them at the Black gate, but then we lost them exploring it.  We stopped at the center of town and had bratwurst and pommes and met them again.  We never saw them after that!  Ha ha!  I've decided we are way too decisive about what we want to see to travel with friends!

We saw the Porte Nigra- 

Since it was the black gate- we surrounded Max and Joseph as Orcs.  Max didn't look that concerned.  I guess he knows he will win in the end!

It's a Roman gate that was turned into a monastery/church for awhile and that is how it survived,

Look at the scroll work on the walls- that was all over!  

The basilica/throne room of Constantine

The Roman baths

The Dom church where they keep the supposed "robe of Christ" found by St. Helena (Constantine's mother.) 

It was beautiful- the church.  The robe is almost never on display, but you can see where they house it behind us. 

We lit our first candle in a Catholic church.

That is ours all by itself.

We saw the workers church also.  They didn't like the Bishop and so when they built their town hall they had two statues of soldiers set on the sides.  One was looking with his visor up over the people of the town.  

The other, with his visor down, ready for battle, is looking at the Bishop's palace!

The workers also made sure the tower on their church was slightly higher than the Bishops.  The Bishop then got mad and paid for one of his towers to be built just slightly higher than theirs.  

The Jewish ghettos. (They look pretty nice now!)

A keep- 

see how the door is up to second level.  Ok, maybe you can't see it- I was taking a picture of the pretty painted windows instead.  They would have wooden stairs that they could pull up at any time from the outside.

Afterwards we stopped on our way home and had dinner at Ramstein and bought everyone new shoes.

We couldn't decide what to do for New years- which usually means we do nothing.  Luckily one of our friends was having the missionaries and another friend who was newly diagnosed with cancer over, so we became their buffers- ha ha!  It sounded like such a fun night- we just couldn't resist!  The night was crazy with fireworks!

They just went off and off and off! 

The whole landscape, as far as you could see, was filled with them- and for about an hour, too!  It was a beautiful site to start the new year!