a German Experience: Wintry Festivities on the First Weekend of December

I am perpetually happier than the day before.
This week involved every morning looking like below.

It's bound to be a good day when I get to enjoy this view from my sofa while sipping coffee and listening to NPR as I wake--stimulation and satisfaction for the five senses, comfy chair, coffee aroma and taste, beautiful view, riveting news coverage (Cathy Wurzer, I love you. Please help me get a copy of the Morning Edition theme song.)

Good news, I have chairs, meaning we're on for dinner parties.

With my hosting equipment in place, the event of the night was the "12 Bars of Christmas." Comically, it took us until bar #5 to discover there are 15 listed.

As a troupe of five, we were highly mobile. Unfortunately, we only made it to 7 bars as we were all too exhausted from full work weeks and full from a cheap beer at each.

Well, bar food in between does also limit stomach capacity.

Then comes a (make-up) birthday. Della came downtown for wintry drinks while enjoying Holidazzle (don't tell her it's already my 2nd time this year.)

Then I insisted on Chinese and Western food. The plan was to make dumplings from scratch--the difficulty was the absence of a roller pin. Target's cheapest retailed for $20, so we improvised discovering that a wine bottle works nearly as well! Fortunately for me, I always have a wine bottle on hand ;-)

Make the filling, make the skins, then pack. How do you know how much you're supposed to use? (Note the large dollop on the spoon and the all-to-small skin.)

It's a team effort because we make a lot. (Hooray for leftovers now coming with me to work.)

Add a simple pasta and we were carb-ed out. Three hours of food preparation will add to the exhaustion.

Eating...finally.

Of course, we have to go out for a cocktail,

or two.

The icing on the cake was the actual icing. The city is now covered in a fluffy layer of snow. It really is a great canvas--Della took the chance to write 乐, (le) meaning enjoyment or happiness. I just thought acting it out would be simpler.