And suddenly, it’s the solstice, and 3 days until Christmas Eve and we’re on vacation.  (Yay!)  Dan doesn’t go back to work until after the first of the year, and B doesn’t go back to school until the 7th of January.  It feels wonderful.

We started the celebration of our holiday this evening by joining our neighbors in some candlelight Christmas caroling (in German) in the chapel in our building.  We all participated and sang along (more or less).  My German pronunciation and reading have gotten good enough that I was able to read along with a lot of the music, and it was really fun to see which of the songs Benjamin already knows from singing them at school.  And it was nice to get to share this bizarrely cool experience of singing Christmas carols, in German, by candlelight, in an ornately decorated chapel in our own building, with Jo while she’s here with us — because there’s really not a way to describe it that will correctly convey the feeling of that experience, and now, at least, I have another witness.

Then, we decided to go look at Christmas lights, and Benjamin wanted some Kinder Punsch (although, it turns out, that’s not what he wanted at all, but that is what he asked for) so we got ourselves dressed warmly and headed out.  And it started to snow.  And even though the kids were tired and the lights were off by the time we got there and we were all a bit exhausted and a little irritable by the time we got home, we all got to go out and go for a walk in the snow, together, after singing Christmas carols by candlelight with our neighbors on this, the darkest evening of the year.

And it really, really feels like Christmastime right now.