Christmas Season Begins!

With much anticipation we got out our decorations right after Thanksgiving, and trimmed Katie's tree. We have not figured out how to chop down our own tree here (although there are tree lots everywhere). Greg even saw a guy on a bicycle driving home with his Christmas tree-how is that for dedication? We are all happy to be in a Christmas country and the weather makes it feel like Christmas to us..its cold just like it should be!

As we shook out the tree skirt the girls were happy we would not find a scorpion lurking under it this year!

 We headed to downtown Brussels to check out the Christmas market...it doesn't compare to the ones in Germany...however there were a few noteworthy things-first this carousel-look at the options!

 Hot air balloon?

 Climb the steps and fly in my own biplane?

 Or ride in the Titanic?  We don't get cool carousels like this back in the US!

 The beer stall for one of the Belgian companies- Leffe...it was its own pub when you got inside.

 Charlie and Greg got to head back to the US for a few days...while Greg worked in NYC, Charlie got to spend time with his best friend from South Africa who now lives in New Jersey..here is trouble!

 The girls and I decided to head to the nearest German Christmas market we could find...we drove a little over an hour away to Aachen-totally worth the trip!

A view from the steps of town hall, looking at one part of the many block long market.

 This giant ball was kind of like a doughnut, covered in warm vanilla sauce...the girls LOVED it!
 (I don't remember what it was called but tons of people were ordering them)

 The shops go all out to decorate, this was the place that sold the famous Printen cookies of Aachen that all the guidebooks said we had to try.  We did our part and got a sampler pack so we could try the ones covered in each type of chocolate-delicious. 

Here is a description from a website called the taste of Germany...
Aachener Printen were developed in the early 1800s in the city of Aachen (Aix le Chapelle) as an advancement to the lebkuchen baking arts. They contain a special combination of the finest flour, sugar molasses, honey, and cinnamon, anise, cloves, cardamon, coriander, and turmeric, and candied oranges and lemons

This stall was selling Swazi candles!

 This area had creepy decorations of witches on top of their entire beer garden area..not sure why there were witches at Christmas?

 Another bakery had these adorable guys...not sure anyone besides Charlie could eat a cookie that big!

One perk of being in Brussels is when important people come to speak at NATO...they might let you come for a quick meet & greet..here is the Ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, introducing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Rex and I, he was very gracious and went around and shook everyone's hands and took pictures if we wanted them. 

While we waited for Rex on Dec 5th,  I was talking with a Belgian guy who was telling me about the Belgian customs for St. Nicholas Day-which happened to be the next day.  He was explaining that it is a very big deal here, for some families it is bigger than actual Christmas.  Most importantly he told me that you must leave out a glass of Belgian beer for St. Nick and carrots for his horse.  I shared this with Charlie who took that for action the same evening. 

 St. Nick even came to ice hockey practice with a special surprise for Charlie's team!

Here is a closer picture of St. Nick.

After dinner that night Charlie ran around getting everything ready for the big man, he put out his shoe as he learned about in French class at school-not his stocking!

All ready! Look at that beautiful beer-he used the Waterloo Uncle Mark!