Last week my friend Daniela invited us to come to her home to bake Grittibanz in honor of St. Nicholas day. These are breads that you shape into boys and girls. They are traditionally made around the time that people are celebrating St. Nicholas day on December 6th.  Daniela patiently showed Jackson (and the rest of us) how to form his bread and he was thrilled with how they turned out.  It was a fun afternoon together with friends….oh yea, and the bread and hot chocolate were divine!!

Another St. Nicholas tradition is for the kids to put their boots out and when St. Nicholas passes by he puts oranges and peanuts in their boots. this may be a tradition we start next year along with the Grittibanz! Here in Switzerland they have a tradition of going out looking for St. Nick. They often take lanterns into the woods and look for him there at night. I am convinced Jackson would not have slept until at least next Dec 6th had we taken part in the woods hunt, so we passed!  That sounded a wee bit scary for us!

For those of you that want to try to make some Grittibanz here is the recipe Daniela used. It is actually the same you could use for Zopf bread. It is so soft and delicious!! After we made our little people we used the extra dough for Daniela to show us how to braid the Zopf loaves.

Bread Recipe for Zopf (as well as Grittibanz)

500g flour (4 1/2 cups)
1 tsp. salt
1 big spoon sugar
1 package of dried yeast. 7g. how much is that? maybe 1 tsp.
75g butter (1/3 cup)
300ml milk (1 1/4 cups)

mix all the dry ingredients. melt the butter, add the milk and warm it (not too hot, or it kills the yeast bacteria). mix it with the rest, pouring it in the middle and stirring, then kneading (the longer the better) until it is nice and smooth and shows bubbles if you cut it with a knife.

let rest for 1 hour or so in room temperature or warmer  (should raise to double size).

form the people. Take ball of dough and elongate it. Cut a slit in the bottom to make legs. Cut a slit on each side to form arms, cut out triangles above the arm to make the remaining dough into head.
mix an egg with some milk and brush it over the dough people.
bake them 20 min with 200 degrees Celsius.
enjoy!

if you want them (or a braided bread) fresh for breakfast, make the dough in the evening and let it rise through the night in the fridge.

Thanks, Daniela for teaching us something new and “Swissy” to take back with us!

As excited as we are to go home I was a bit sad to miss out on the coziness and charm of Bern Christmas. The Swiss do a wonderful job with the lights, decorations and Christmas markets! I love all of fresh greenery and white lights. Last weekend we spent Saturday morning with our friends Nick and Kima at the Basel Christmas market. We didn’t buy a thing other than lunch but we enjoyed visiting and eating lunch at the market.

GIANT pretzels

Stolen!! (this picture is for my mom)

Crepes and Waffles was the name of a restaurant where we met Nick and Kima for ice cream many a Sunday afternoon…fun to see a Swiss version! Fun memories.

A couple of days ago Seth was working in a nearby town, Murten. The boys and I drove and met up with him to check out the Christmas market there.  It was much smaller than the Basel market but the setting was beautiful.

When given a choice of riding a pony or riding this piece of plastic Jackson will all conviction picked the plane. He can’t say his daddy never offered a pony ride!

We still hope to do a quick walk through of the Bern market but time is tight!

Cookie decorating this year was a family affair. Come to think of it I don’t know if Seth has ever iced cookies in our whole married life. He even got to wear an apron this yr per Jackson’s instruction! My mom was able to whip up 6 kinds of cookies when I was growing up. For us this year it is just one kind! Classic sugar cookies with bright icing and sprinkles! We have tried lots of recipes over the years but I think “The Joy of Cooking’s” Rich Rolled cookies are the best!  And this is how it went….

There was laughing and crying, messing and cleaning, and lots of sugary cookies!

ps- I am off to the Embassy bazaar to sell some baked goods and stocking stuffers!! I will let you know how it goes! My sweet friend is coming to play with the boys so I am actually going ALONE!!!  Haven’t done that in a while.

As I mentioned in my previous post about Christmas, I kept our decorations simple this year. We are going home this year to Texas (YIPEEEEEEE!) so I knew we shouldn’t do a fresh tree and knowing that I will be coming back a week into January I was hesitant to create a ton of work for myself on return!  I also wanted  the kids to catch the simplicity of it and not get distracted by chaos. We are spending time after dinner each night doing our advent calendar. Each night the boys pull a small book out of the calendar. The books are each about part of the nativity story. They also normally find a little treat whether it be a clementine or a chocolate. It’s fun having both boys old enough this year to work on developing some traditions that they will remember.

We are keeping gifts really simple this year. Each boy is getting a few things and we will probably let them pick out a gift for their brother. Most of our shopping this year was done via the internet. We have saved a few things to pick out for the boys when we are live in the US of A but most have been bought and shipped without touching them.  If you haven’t checked out Zulily.com I highly recommend it for kids and mom gifts! They carry daily deals with great markdowns and normally boutique quality! Check out my friend’s blog too if you are looking for a unique gift. She makes super cute signs on old hardwood flooring.  Confession, I bought one of Jennifer’s signs a few months ago thinking it would make a great gift. Turns out the sign loves my kitchen and makes me smile so I had to keep it! I wanted to do a post and properly introduce Jennifer…and hope to still do so…but in the meantime I wanted you to know about her signs!! Here is a peek at the one I got….I love it because it doesn’t say this is the perfect life, or the calmest, or the easiest, it says it’s “the finest kind of life”. Despite life’s ups and downs we are blessed.

A few weeks ago I realized that I wasn’t as stressed about shopping as I normally am. Seth and decided this year that instead of gifts we would spend an overnight in Dallas going back to our favorite places where we met, fell in love and spent our first year as a married couple!  I am so looking forward to our time together and I have to admit I am relieved to not be obsessing about the best gift for Seth.

Well, I am guessing you have all gotten your dose of random from me for the day! Hope you are all enjoying the holiday season!