Christmas Eve in Krakow, Poland

On Christmas Eve we visited the Christmas market held in the main square and ate Polish pierogies after realizing we would not be making our annual traditional pierogies from scratch. Of course, everyone thought they were not as tasty as the Wyzga recipe with farmers cheese filling.

The Church of St Mary, constructed in the 1300-1500's is where we attended Midnight Mass. From the Hejnal Tower every hour, a trumpet call is played which abruptly stops in remembrance of a medieval trumpeter, who was shot in the neck with an arrow while sounding an alarm of invaders attacking the city.

The wall above the altar opens up displaying one of the most ornate altars in all of Europe.

In an attempt to recreate the traditional polish Christmas eve dinner we had to find a grocery store that was open on Christmas eve. We found it very difficult to navigate the streets whose names all began with the letter "K", and had at least 14 characters in them with very few vowels. We sadly had to settle for frozen Pierogies, canned soup, and store bought Christmas cookies! We also forgot the traditional communion wafer used to "break bread" with one another as we share Christmas greetings.

Waiting for midnight mass we continued our ongoing tournament of Settlers of Cataan.  Jesse started keeping score last spring on his blackberry and is currently in the lead.

We made sure to arrive 40 minutes early for midnight mass, and were fortunate to have seats and not stand in the aisles as did many.  The Polish choir started singing about 15 minutes before the mass and I (steve) was surprised at how many of the tunes I remembered.  But when the first chords of "Wsrod Nocnej Ciszy" signalled the beginning of the service, a wave of memories from my past 50 years swept over me.  All I could think was, "Dad would so want to be here!"  It was powerful and moving.  I scanned the faces of those around me, young and old, poor and fairly well off, and tried to consider what these people had lived through the past 50-60 years, and the meaning for them in this simple carol:

Angels from heaven sang a thrilling psalm
Waking the shepherds from their drowsy calm
Rise ye shepherds, hurry onward
Greet the newborn Son of David
King Emmanuel

Koln, Germany Christmas Market

The Cologne Christmas market was laid out in the shadow of a magnificent medieval cathedral resulting in a very "non-American" experience.

Highlights: Just being together!The Christmas ornament shops, old world street alleys, the street musicians, the local craftsman, and the food stalls.

Jesse and Rose introduced us to mulled wine to start the Christmas market tour! 

Steve and the boys were in heaven with these vats of potatoes, bacon, and meat.

Jesse and Rose enjoying the chocolate laced, cream topped waffles.

Once we had Chad in the Cathedral, it was hard to get him out! We had to drag him away from his Cathedral "meditations".

Six of us crammed into one cabin. God's grace at work in all our lives :)

European Christmas First Stop UK

Well it wasn't what we planned!  Two feet of snow dumped on DC pushing our flight back a day, while snow in France shut down the Eurostar, our next connection to Belgium.  Rose's excellent itinerary had to be immediately modified. We skipped Belgium to meet Jesse and Rose in London.

More delays brought the plane to London near midnight - but we were able to catch a 1 am bus to Stansted airport.  But - no bus to the hotel!

The shuttle bus driver created a special stop for us. We felt like Polish refugees as we had to hike through the snow, over wired fencing, and down hilly banks with backpacks to the hotel.

With 30 minutes of sleep, we were overjoyed to finally meet up with Rose and Jesse.