Day 14 - Ever sneaked a peak at a gift?

Nope! Not to my knowledge, anyway.

Day 13 - Describe your typical Christmas eve.

Uhm. I come home from work, I eat dinner, I watch some tv, and mentally prepare for all the work involved on Christmas day. What's yours like?

Day 12 - Another audio of a favorite Christmas song/carol.

I think the last time I answered this (see Day 1) I chose an advent song. This time I'll go with Stille Nacht. Here it is, performed by the St Thomas Boy Choir.

Day 11 - Are you any good at wrapping presents? Describe a gift wrapped by you.

I am very good at wrapping presents. Nuff said.

Day 10 - Do you give to charities or other people around the holidays?

I don't make it a point to give just because it's Christmas. We do give regularly of our time, talent and treasure through out the year.

Day 09 - Best Holiday Traditions

The wife and I sing in a couple of church choirs, so we're usually pretty busy around the Advent and Christmas seasons. I think right now, one of my favorite holiday traditions, is that after we finish the (almost to ) Midnight Mass, and we get home, we each open a present, and then go to bed. We'll get to the rest of the presents in the morning.

Day 08 - A holiday dessert of your choosing.

My all-time favorite dessert ever is bread pudding.  I love it.

But if you wanna try something different, and I suggest you do, at least for two or three bites (more might kill you, no lie) you should try this recipe:

Krispy Kreme Donut Bread Pudding

 Ingredients

• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 (4 1/2-ounce) cans fruit cocktail, with their juice
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 (9-ounce) box raisins
• Pinch salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 24 donuts, cut into cubes (recommended: Krispy Kreme)
• Butter Rum Sauce, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all ingredients except for the donut cubes and Butter Rum Sauce. Add the donut cubes and toss until they have absorbed as much of the liquid as possible. Pour the mixture into a casserole dish and bake for 1 hour. Serve with Butter Rum Sauce.

Butter Rum Sauce:

• 1 stick butter
• 1 (1-pound) box confectioners' sugar
• Dark rum

Day 07 - Favorite (Christmas) Memory

Uhm, I did that on Day 02- Favorite Christmas of All Time.  Click it, read it. :-)

Day 06 - Favorite Christmas movie(s).

My favorite Christmas movie is White Christmas, with Bing Crosby (and Rosemary Clooney!).  I really don't know why. Maybe it's the "grouchy" Major General, the cheesy plot that just happens to fall together, the legs (!) or the music, cause Christmas music just isn't what it used to be, but this movie--I'll watch it all year long, to be honest.

Trailor for White Christmas

The Alpine Village Trip

We went to the 3rd Annual Christkindlmarkt in Helen, GA today. I didn't take many pictures, but the few I snapped, I wanted to share here.  The original plan was to leave by 6, drive the hour hours or so there, spend the day in the Markt, shopping and eating what I was hoping was fantastically awesome German food, and then drive home. Good plan!

We left about 630am, but the wife came, which was a pleasant surprise! I don't recall the last time she saw 6:00am, so I really wasn't expecting her to make it. There was supposed to be a rather large group going, but people kept jumping ship on me--I think the wee hours is what have killed most of them.

The drive isn't bad at all. My Garmin doesn't maneuver the streets of Atlanta very well, but we managed to bypass the toll road, and just drive 30 or so minutes longer than we expected--is that a win?

Anyway, a few pictures!

These first three pictures are just from the Main Street area. The town (I kept calling it a village!) refaced everything a while back, and it's so picturesque. The little white tents you see are the market itself--I was very disappointed in what they had there, but it was rainy, so maybe that kept it from really being full? The cute shops down the alleys were either cute, and fun to look through, or very touristy-oh-geez-did-I-drive-to-Panama-City-Beach-by-mistake? I opted not to get a tattoo, and I turned down the bodily function t-shirt and underwear combo. Sad day.

But the real reason I desperately wanted to go was for the food, and to be honest, it didn't disappoint.

This was a small section in their deli, solely meat! My favorite, and what I ate at this restaurant, was the LeberKaese meat. It's amazing, and it doesn't do it justice to call it a beef/pork bologna type product. You cut slabs (I do, anyway) of it, fry it up, and eat it on a broetchen. They served it a little differently here (see a few pics down) but it tasted great. You can find it pre-cut in this picture on the top shelf, fourth from the right.

The above-photo is from the bakery case. My favorite cake in the world, my go-to, the creme de la creme (did I Frenchy that up correctly?) is the Black Forest Cake. It's the middle-shelf cake, closest to the bottom right. I won't even begin to try to tell you how good it is. Be fore-warned, there are lots of imitations in America, and most of the ones I've had suck.

This is the plate with the Leberkaese on it. The rolls were great, too. I didn't like that the potato salad came cold, though. I wished it were warm, but it was good, and made in the hot-potato salad style, with a vinegar, bullion bacon kind of base.

OH--I also went to the Old Bavarian Inn for a coffee/pretzel kind of break. I wouldn't recommend eating there. The gluhwein was not full of gluh at all, and the food was basically pedestrian. The pretzel, however, was dynomite. So grab a coffee, and a pretzel, shell out some buckage, and have a great time not eating the food there.

I'll certainly be going back to the Alpine Village (I kept calling it New Germany) next year, and probably staying in one of the charming rooms, to make it a two day event.

Day 05 - Favorite Christmas Album

My favorite album for Christmas is by Chanticleer: Sing We Christmas, recorded in 1995. It includes some of my favorites, like Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, O magnum mysterium, and In the Bleak Midwinter.

It does not, however, include my favorite Christmas song, Ave Maria, by Franz Biebl. It was recorded once, by Chanticleer, and is arguably one of their most popular numbers. They have just (!) re-released it, in a live recording, from their A Chanticleer Christmas album--which just made it to my wish list on Amazon today.

Day 04 - Best Gift Ever Given

I don't really know if this is best gift ever given to me, or best gift I've ever given to someone else, so I'll try to answer them both!

I'm not sure I have a single best gift ever given to me, but this is definitely one of the more memorable ones.

This is a knife made by Puma. It's a handmade knife, or the one I received was, with a Rockwell test of 52, I think. My grandmother bought it for me, and it was one of the last gifts I received from her. I remember my brother and my father also received one. At the time, I only knew that my dad was very impressed, and so I was, too. Now, I really know how much I love this knife.

Puma Rambler

One of the best gifts I've ever given was to my wife. I decided I wanted to make her something two Christmases ago. I chose to re-create the Victoria Secret's 2008 Fantasy Million Dollar Bra worn by Adriana Lima.  I think it turned out great. What do you think?

She also loved the Artoo Potatoo that year.

Day 03 - Best gift ever received

There have been so many really good gifts in my life.

I gotta go with this for my number 1 Christmas gift, right now.  Two Christmases ago (three, if you count this year) I bought a TiVo with Christmas money from my folks. At the time, my wife thought I was wasting money, as we used a VCR to record shows we wanted to watch, and were managing just ok, or so we thought.

Honey, that thing has changed our viewing lives. For good. And we love it. And we use it almost daily. And you should, too. Trust me, I'm a doctor. (Not really, but I thought the line sounded good right there.)

Day 02 - Which has been your favorite Christmas of all time?

I've been thinking about this one for a while now, and I'm not really sure I have an answer. I wish I could conjure up some great Christmas stories for you, honest.

I remember two moments, though I don't remember when they were:

1. I remember what had to be one of my first Christmases in Germany (that I can recall, obviously.) It was a big deal over there, that we not see the room we would celebrate in. It was closed off, on the second floor. I remember we had to dress up (for most things, which I still kind of appreciate) for it, and when we were let into the room, there was a tree, loads of presents, a cd playing, and instead of stockings, we had plates full of chocolates, candies, and goodies for both of us.  I dont remember what we got that year, or what we did; I just remember it as a happy, warm Christmas with my family. 
2. My youngest brother--despite growing up in Kentucky--was a Green Bay Packers fan. One year, when he was still in grade school, my dad bought him a jacket, scarf and hat--all in that ugly green and cheddar-yellow.  When he unwrapped this ginormous box--who knows what he thought was in there--he saw (instead of what he thought) a box for a dressmaker's dummy that my mom had purchased not too long before Christmas. The confused look on his face, as he tried to be thankful and appreciative was priceless.  The elated look on his face when he opened this box, and instead saw all of the Green Bay merchandise was even better.

Day 01 - Favorite Christmas Song

I think, technically, this is an Advent song?  The text is by Christina Rosetti, one of my favorite poets. The group singing is Chanticleer, definitely on of my top three performance ensembles. You can find their website at www.chanticleer.org for more info.