December happenings

My Secret Santa arrived

The best thing, that happened so far this week, was that my Secret Santa package arrived. Who knows me, knows that I love surprises, and I honestly already forgot about it. I am thankful that San from the in between is mine organized this again.

Other than that life has been busy with work, getting ready for Christmas including sending out cards, wrapping presents, putting things on various piles to take along on our trip to see family in Germany and in general just make it through the last week of school. I can tell my kids need the break. There is one more concert for each child and then we can breath for two weeks. The only thing left to decide is if we take an Uber to the airport, park there or take public transit (I think it is coming down to Uber since parking for two weeks is not cheap either) and if we are doing a pre-christmas gift exchange at home or if we wait. I kind of like the idea of doing it before. That way I don’t have to pack any of our own presents (except a special one that the kids can use on the way). There will be enough things to bring back as is.
I maybe should be making a list of things I want to buy when we are there. I am curious, is there anything you would think a typical souvenir you would bring back with you? For us it’s mostly sweets (the Haribo selection at the supermarkets is insane), tea (herbal and fruit teas mostly), vitamin tablets that dissolve in water (I never understood why in Germany they sell for one Euro for a role of 20, whereas here you can pay $1 for one serving), mustard and maybe some salad dressing powder. The days where we brought back tooth paste and dried sauce packages are over mostly. I always found it interesting that my SIL will buy tooth paste in the US ever since she spend a year as an Au-pair in the country.

How are you doing with your holiday preparations or are you already right in the middle of it?