Holly Jolly

Christmas things started appearing in stores not long after we moved to Munster, but at this point they're everywhere! The weather is decidedly chilly (it's been in the mid 30s during the day), so it feels like the right atmosphere to have trees and twinkle lights everywhere. I fully approve of this Christmas in November thing. As much as I do love Thanksgiving, I'm really enjoying a longer season of Christmas without people complaining about trees being up before we've carved a turkey. 

Around Thanksgiving, Christmas markets will start here and I can't wait! Everyone we know who's been to Germany this time of year talks about the markets with a glimmer of fond memories in their eyes, so we look forward to experiencing them for ourselves. I'd love to visit some markets in other cities as well, so perhaps we will make our December trip to somewhere very Christmassy!

A few weeks ago, I noticed that there were rather a lot of advent calendar options in stores. In the past few weeks, the advent calendar thing has gotten out of control. There is an advent calendar for everything you could possibly imagine. Advent calendars with toys, with full size candy, with perfumes and lotions, with Disney characters, with wine... if you can dream up an advent calendar, I'm almost certain they have it! Here are a couple I took pictures of when we were in a department store the recently - lots of calendars with toys in them, and the second picture has advent calendars that are full of perfumes! There was a massive one in a store the other day with Lindt chocolates that was probably half my height.

There are impressive candy displays too. I liked this Kinder chocolate tree in the drugstore the other day but there are more elaborate options as well. For a country that seems to have a lot of very fit people, they must take their chocolate and candy seriously, because they're always displayed quite prominently! Behind this display, you can sort of see the Haribo gummies - they have so many different kinds! (if you click on that link, click on different countries at the top - I always find it interesting to see how they market different things to different countries! the US page looked very different from the Germany page) Carson in particular is a big gummy candy lover, so he really appreciates the wide selection!

Can't wait to share more Christmassy things as we experience them!

I'm not sure what we'll do as far as decorating for Christmas or getting a Christmas tree. We'd like to do something, but want to keep it cheap so we can travel somewhere, and if we get a tree it will have to be table-top sized!