Baby’s First Christmas

I know, this is chronologically off because I wrote in February. I’ve been working too much and haven’t had a spare minute to do any writing!

We celebrated two Christmases this year, one with each family.

Boxheimer Family Christmas, December 15-16, 2012
We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner with Fabian’s immediate family on the 15th—a delicious salad with goat cheese and mango chutney, followed by stewed meat and vegetables, and two types of knödel (giant dumplings made with potato and bread, respectively), followed by a homemade ice cream dessert. Emma had Pasta Bambini from a jar of baby food, but she didn’t eat very much of it—she was so much more interested in our food!



After dinner, we traded gifts with “wichteln,” which is like Secret Santa. The theme this year was homemade gifts. To play, you roll a dice, and you can only open presents if you roll a 6. Other numbers you pass to the right or left, or trade with someone at the table. We gave a cardboard penguin (from Fabian), and a mosaic of a Dachshund (from me). Lilly got the penguin, and Paul got the mosaic. Fabian got a painted box with different nick-knacks inside (from Henriette), and I got a jar of delicious salted caramel peanuts (from Lilly). Emma got her own wichteln gift, a German baby book.

Next, we had a debate whether we would open presents or not. I was extremely relieved when everyone decided to open presents together, because plan B would have entailed us taking all of the gifts to the US to open there. How were we ever going to get everything in our suitcases?!! The present exchange was very nice, and I think everyone liked their gifts. :)

The next day, we had Christmas Day with the Grandma’s and Great Aunt. More cookies, more cakes, and more chocolate! Coffee was fine, Emma was pretty well behaved, but she did almost knock over a candle… I have to say, my heart stopped for a moment when I saw what was about to happen! Fortunately, the candle righted itself, and no harm done.

After coffee, we opened more presents. Emma got a cute wagon from her Great Grandma, it’s a very nice wooden wagon with a string so she can pull it along with her. She has the right idea for pulling it, but she needs some practice. Right now she can pull the wagon toward her if you give her the string. I think it’s cool, anyway…

Wilfong Family Christmas, December 24-25
My family traditions aren’t so different from German traditions (I do have German roots), and we also celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Our Christmas Eve celebrations started by going to church for an afternoon service. Emma was not at all interested in church, and she only made it through the first 20-minutes before I had to leave with her. We ended up going back to the car, I changed her, fed her, and walked around with her. About 20-minutes later, my mom came outside to keep us company. I was in an incredibly bad mood because I was so looking forward to going to church, to begin the tradition for Emma that is now an essential part of “Christmas” for me as an adult. I didn’t act very nice when my mom came out, but I really was glad that someone else could take an over-tired, whiny baby for a little while.



After church, we drove to Adrienne’s house where Todd was finishing our dinner. Dinner wasn’t quite ready when we arrived, and we had some time to relax and let Emma entertain us. She had just learned she could raise both arms over her head, throw them down, and that everyone would copy her, and she spent a good 30-minutes training us while we waited for dinner.

When dinner was ready, we ate a delicious meal consisting of: salad with raisins and roasted peanuts, a variety of potatoes with a peanut-based sauce, broccoli rabé, lamb with chimichurri sauce, salmon, carrots in carrot sauce (sounds funny, but super delicious and carrot-y), and toasted baguettes, followed by ice cream topped with caramel for dessert. Did I mention that my soon-to-be brother-in-law is a professional chef?? Dinner was awesome!



After dinner, we opened presents. There were an unseemly amount of gifts for Emma and for her new cousin Kira (who then hadn’t been born), and I am not exaggerating when I say that we opened presents for two hours. Everyone was extremely done with presents before we even finished. It was sort of ridiculous, but nice at the same time. True to form, Emma was more interested in the wrapping paper than the gifts themselves… Maybe next year she will figure out her priorities.

Everyone was exhausted and ready for sleep at the end of the day, and we took a tired and cranky Emma home to Sarah’s house. She fell asleep on the way (hooray!) and didn’t wake up when we took her out of the car to carry her into the house (even bigger hooray!).

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Emma’s first Christmases were a lot of fun, entertaining, and exhausting. I think she picked up on the excitement, and sensed that something special was happening. She was a bit overwhelmed with all of the presents and wrapping paper everywhere. I was glad when the hubbub of Christmas was over as it meant we could sort of return to a more normal schedule and a happier, less exhausted baby.

Emma, the travel diva

We survived the nine hour flight from Frankfurt to Chicago, followed by an eleven hour car ride to Nashville. Emma is an absolute champion traveler!

We left for the airport at 7:00a, and Emma was still sleeping when I started changing her, and woke up enough to have breakfast and get into some warmer clothes for the car ride. She wasn’t very happy about waking up or leaving her warm bed, but after ten minutes in the car she slept again. :) We had excellent traffic and made it to the airport by 8:00a!

At the airport, we were confused and concerned that Fabian’s boarding pass wouldn’t print at the check-in kiosk, and when we asked someone about it, they sent us to the first class/business class check-in desk, which was awesome since we didn’t have to wait in the economy line for three years. The woman at the check-in desk said that the boarding pass didn’t print on purpose so that we would be sent to the short line with the baby. From there, check-in and finding the gate were easy-peasy.

We boarded early, which was incredibly handy since the flight was completely booked. We could find our seats without people getting antsy standing behind us waiting to get all of our shit settled. We sat in the baby row, which came equipped with bassinets! We didn’t end up needing the bassinet, but it was nice to have the option if we wanted it.

The guy who sat next to us was absolutely incredible, no complaints about us getting up like fifteen times during the flight to change/walk with Emma, go to the toilet, etc. Emma was a messy baby and a poop machine on the flight. We know for the next time that we should bring a third change of clothes for Emma…
Emma didn’t really sleep on the plane (only 2 hours), but she was very content and well behaved for the entire flight. Her favorite thing was to look out the window and stare at the clouds. She didn’t have any problems with take-off or landing (except for farting the entire way descending  into Chicago).

After making it to Chicago, we had some sandwiches, visited my aunt, then finally made it to my parents house. Then, we had some down time while we waited for a few friends to come visit before we drove to Nashville for Christmas, and Emma slept for about an hour. Emma was very tired meeting everyone, and cranky, but still made friends. :)

After my friends left, we repacked our suitcases and started driving to Nashville. We were severely jetlagged and could easily sleep in the car. Hooray! Emma slept in her big girl car seat, and everyone was happy. The drive was relatively smooth, and we stopped a few times for changing and eating. Fabian got the 4:30a Denny’s dining experience—nuff said.

After breakfast, I was the primary driver since both of my parents were pooped, and for me it felt like noon. :) We arrived in Nashville around 9:00a, had a lovely afternoon visiting with my sisters, Emma crashed at 4:00p, and we went to bed at like 7:00p.

We all survived ~40 hours of travel, a seven hour time difference, and a car ride with my parents. Hooray!
See you (next year haha!) in Chicago!

(Relaxing after arriving in Nashville)

(Emma was completely passed OUT!)

Thanksgiving and Nikalous

I have been sort of busy these last few weeks, so please excuse me for not posting about Thanksgiving earlier.

This Thanksgiving felt like a total bust. We couldn’t have dinner until Sunday, then two of Fabian’s siblings had/have mono and couldn’t join us for the festivities. Thanksgiving day itself blew chunks—lots of stress and neither Fabian or I were in a good mood. We were able to find almost everything for a traditional dinner, except cranberries. We substituted with jars of Preiselbeeren (I don’t know the translation in English), which tasted pretty similar and are also usually eaten with meat.

Thanksgiving day itself was fine. We hosted Fabian’s parents, brother, grandma, aunt, and a random friend of his aunt. Everyone enjoyed the meal! We even had pumpkin pie, and the new Thanksgiving celebrators couldn’t believe that it was really pumpkin.



After the celebrations, Emma faked us out by pretending she was really going to sleep, and when she woke  up 20 minutes later, Henriette told us we should go walk around Schwetzingen to get out of the house (it was still relatively early), so we did. Emma was in a FANTASTIC mood, and we could leave her sitting n the Kinderwagen while we shared toast Hawaii and drinks. I really couldn’t believe how well she was behaving for us! Such a nice Thanksgiving treat!

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On December 3, Fabian celebrated his 25th birthday! He got to sleep in a little bit, we went to Schwetzingen for lunch, then had his family over for coffee, glühwein, and cake. Mmm! After everyone left, we had a relaxed evening and had a pizza dinner.

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Breaking news in Emma-land:

• She likes snow!
• She can climb book cases.
• She can get from laying down to sitting up all by herself.
• She has 6 teeth, and teething suggests more are on the way.
• She’ has finally rediscovered that sleeping is good and enjoyable!!!!
• She can get from sitting to standing by pulling herself up on furniture easy peasy.

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Yesterday was Nikalous day. In Germany, the tradition is to leave your boot outside and then Nikalous will deliver treats (peanuts, mandarins, chocolate, socks, etc.). My family also celebrates St. Nicholas Day, and we’ve always gotten goodies inside stockings. This year, we had three Nikalous’s stop by!

From her American Nicholas, Emma got a toy cell phone. It makes noise. But, she seems to enjoy throwing it all over. Thanks American Nicholas! Her German Nikalous brought her different jars of fruity baby food, and two pairs of tights! The third Nikalous gave her some hilarious baby leg warmers. :)

Between Fabian and I, we now have more chocolate than we know what to do with, a whole bunch of new socks (yay!), and soooo many peanuts!!!!!