Ok folks, I totally recognize that Christmas is but a dim memory and that most of us have already blown our New Year’s Resolutions to high heck and back…. but, I just happen to have a boatload of darling Sophie Christmas photos still crying out to be seen and finally a free night to upload them!

First of all, 2007 wins the grand prize as the Busiest Year In The History of the Universe. It was totally marvelous. I was just about funned-out by the time the holidays arrived, but my parents jetted to Hamburg to rescue me and upload a little Christmas spirit into my weary soul. Mom came with the biggest shiny red suitcase you ever did see (it was AWESOME! Mom can I have a whole set for Christmas next year???) and had filled it with fabulous gifts, prizes, screwdrivers, scotch tape, and other stuff that she thought we didn’t have in Germany. (It’s ok Mom, I know I used to tell you it was a third-world country here, but really, I was exaggerating….).

She took one look at our pathetic Christmas ornament collection, rolled her eyes dramatically, and dragged us all off to the mall for some serious shopping. It was so GREAT! We headed straight for the Kaethe Wolfort store (the mother of all Christmas ornament shops) and loaded up. Mom’s visa took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’ ! Even my dad got in the spirit and picked out a couple of goodies.

Onward we trekked, and by nightfall we had enough ornaments to fully deck our tree and about every other tree a kilometer in each direction. Problem is… we had no tree! So off Dad and I dashed to the local Christmas tree lot where some Danish guy hawked trees for about EUR 55 each (apparently really expensive by German standards). I asked him for the biggest, baddest tree he had. He rattled off excitedly in some sort of unintelligible German and proudly presented us - with a flourish - a Really Big Bad Tree. My dad laughed, I forked over the cash, then we (the three of us and a couple of bystanders…) stuffed it in the back of the station wagon and headed off.

Soenke arrived home to the beginnings of a Chevy Chase Christmas vacation scene. I mean, we have a long way to go (exterior lights would be the next logical step… a rarity in Deutschland) but we were definitely the most festive on our block. I could just imagine our neighbors around the dinner table, sniffing “Did you SEE that American girl’s house? So brazen! Why didn’t her husband stop her?” Thankfully Soenke was off flying during all our hard prep work, so he couldn’t intervene in our decor endeavors until it was much too late.

As an aside, I should explain that if you talk about Christmas in Germany, people will cryptically refer to “heiliger Abend, the first Christmas day, and the second Christmas day”. That’s Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, respectively. It took me a few years to figure that out. This whole 2-days-of-Christmas thing was a little confusing. But the real bummer is, Boxing Day here is just another day that the grocery stores are closed (they close for 2 1/2 days straight) and NOT the best shopping day of the year, like in America (God bless rampant commercialism!) What happened to those nostalgic days when we’d get up at 6am the day after Christmas in order to be the first in the stores for the 7am super sales? Sigh…

(Actually, truth be told, that never was me. I’d rather pay full price then get up for any reason at 6am).

Anyway, back to Hamburg. Christmas brought our humble abode a happy revolving door of friends and family. Just about everyone we knew here popped in at one time or another. Knut, his girlfriend Saskia, and brother Ingo joined us for a tasty Raclette dinner on Christmas Eve. Soenke’s family came on Christmas Day. On Boxing Day, we played poker into the wee hours with Klaudia, Mehmet, and Jalil. Mehmet showed us his new cell phone slash PDA slash navigation system slash robot slash dishwasher, and I spilled Klaudia’s borscht soup all over our kitchen floor.

Sophie spent the holidays being as cute as humanly possible. She hammed it up for all our guests, giggled, smiled, played with her myriad new toys, learned how to open presents, and even sneezed with a mouth full of beets. Thank you Sophster!

I share with you now a veritable smorgasbord of photos from our happy holidays. Pretend it’s still December, and enjoy!

———————————————————

In no particular order:

Mom & Dad show up just in time to inject some holiday spirit:

I took the folks and Sophie to Lueneberg - the ultimate darling German town:

Cobblestone streets complete the cuteness package (ok, so these weren’t cobblestone… but a lot of them were!):

This is as close as we got in Hamburg to a white Christmas:

Knut & Saskia brought Sophie a really cute tote bag (and won’t we regret THIS in about 16 years!):

Did you ever SEE such a happy little girl???:

I prepare our first Crawford-Einfeldt family Christmas book (where we keep a record of all the gifts each year and make fun notes about who was there and what happened):

Lena, Ole, and Hauke entertain Santa’s cutest elf:

The ultimate baby cube:

Saskia looks awfully comfortable holding a baby…..!

Someone likes her new teddy bear from Oma & Opa!:

Knut practicing his future papa skills (he ADORES Sophie! It’s really sweet…):

Sophie began eating solids in December. So far she likes mushy cereal, mushy peas, mushy sweet potatoes, and mushy beets. Yummy, eh?

Soenke and Ingo discuss the finer points of keeping Germany alight. (Ingo works for the electricity company here in Deutschland)…

That’s our Christmas girl!:

You just can’t get enough of Kauai. I mean, really. You can’t. Here are yet more photos and details, covering the thrilling events of each day of our wayyy-too-short Aloha Week. If you find that any of these photos are particularly beautiful and artistic, they were probably taken by my cousin Steve.

First, our fabulous hotel - the Outrigger Waipouli in Kapa’a. I give full kudos to my tax research software rep, Dave Basok, who sagely recommended this hotel to us when he heard my brother had a herd of kids to squeeze in - the hotel had 2-room suites and a kid-fantasy-pool that made this place a big hit.

My cousin Seth LOVED the waterfall grotto in the crook of the “river” below (you can’t see it unless you’re IN it!):

A room with a dream view:

No, not the newlywed room! This was the kids’ room in my bro’s suite:

The bathtub could probably fit my entire family:

And back to day One…

We head to the “very official looking” Pono Market to get our marriage license:

Sophie is a island babe !

We sign the marriage license paperwork:

Day Two dawns bright and promising:

Several of the Welcome Breakfast attendees (fully lei’d!) at Eggbert’s Family Restaurant…

Day 3 is Thanksgiving!

We all enjoy our international Thanksgiving dinner and lounging about afterwards:

Russ & Gloria (Gina’s parents - Gina is my sis-in-law) and Soenke’s dad Hauke chow on turkey:

Gina, Seth, and my Mom enjoy the grub:

Soenke, Tim, Marie, my bro Andrew, and Soenke’s mom Antje dig in:

Cousin Drew goes to town with his turkey and accoutrements!

Sophie and her cousins chill out while watching a kids’ DVD:

Day 4 takes us out and about, eventually to the world-famous Smith Family Luau!

Kauai’s shrubbery (or at least its gardener!) has a sense of humor:

Off to Smith’s Tropical Paradise for an evening of luau and more :

The grounds and the surrounding views are breathtaking…

Cousin Steve really captures the beauty

In the Smith’s gardens, they have “sectors” representing the various other Polynesian islands. Here, I have found the tribute to EASTER ISLAND! (see, I’m almost there! only a few thousand more miles!)

There were also snotty peacocks that refused to display their plumage, no matter how much I begged:

We don’t even know what this was:

Day Five: Men Take To The Air

One highlight of the trip for several of the men (Russ, my dad, Soenke, and Tim) was a helicopter ride. Of course, it took a WOMAN to organize it (me). Mostly the men would sit around every day and say “ahh yeah, we should do one-a them helicopter rides!” I believe that except for Russ, it was everyone else’s first time in a helicopter. Soenke as a pilot of things that crash when the horizontal speed goes to zero was especially nervous when the helicopter insisted on hovering.

Here’s the bird:

Soenke hops right in!

Gorgeous views of the island…

Day 6: A smorgasbord of here and there

My bro and his fabulous brood get organized for a family photo:

Kim - who has the most amazing mother instincts ever for a chick who’s not a mom yet - hangs out with Sophie at our breakfast headquarters (Eggbert’s , of course):

Soenke and my dads talk shop out at the pool:

This is the river where the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark was filmed (where the guy with the water plane was fishing when Indiana Jones came tearing out of the jungle with all the natives running behind him…)

While enjoying the scenery, we are both still having a bad hair day:

Here is my Cousin Steve , along Soenke’s mom… I had NO photos of him, so had to borrow one from our wonderful photographer:

Saying Goodbye to Kauai! (sniff, sniff!!)

Soenke and Sophie play in the airport waiting lounge:

If you leave your lei on this guy, then legend has it you will come back to Kauai someday! I should have left TEN leis around his neck, just to make sure!!!!!!