A long-standing tradition of our family, started by Mama (who lives in Germany), is to make a Hexenhaus (Witch's House) just like the house in the Brothers Grimm's fairytale, "Hansel und Gretel". Today we call these Gingerbread houses and we strayed from Mama's "honey cake" Lebkuchen recipe and went with standard American style gingerbread... but we decorated it with typical Engel Overkill: tons of chocolates and bon bons sent by Mama even though she knows darn well that none of us really need to be eating this stuff.

Kudos to Papa, Patrick and Kelly for making the house.

Kudos to doggies Juneau and Lea for not attempting to eat the house.

Poor doggies can't eat Gingerbread Houses!!!

Time to walk the dogs. Whenever Papa visits, Juneau knows he's gonna get 3X as many walks as normal. He loves it. Lea, even though she's only 7 months old, has caught on as well.

We walked the dogs a lot.

Christmas Eve!

Patrick (my brother) and Kelly (sister-in-law) were gracious enough to host it this year. Christmas Eve is the more important night in our family. It's tradition to partake in Fondue on Christmas Eve. People ask us if it's because my Dad's side of the family is Swiss. The answer is no, we just love Fondue! We do meats and sauces, and then sometimes we do Raclette (a little more complex than Fondue). This year we just did Fondue which included pork, beef and chicken with all kinds of sauces. Patrick concocted several sauces with curry this time, including an amazing mustard type sauce which practically became a prized posession. I wonder if he even remembers what he did. haha. Whatever he did, they were great! Also great were these new types of tomatoes... they're almost like little tiny plums. No, not cherry tomatoes... these are different. I really like them...

These little figurines have been in our family a long time. I can't remember where they're from, possibly Germany, not sure. Then again, they could be from when we lived in Midland, Michigan.