White Christmas

On Thursday we left Vienna early - just after lunchtime in order to avoid heavy traffic - and headed for Vorarlberg for the traditional christmas holidays with Kerstin´s family. For the first to hours Jakob slept peacefully in his seat and when he woke up he was in very good mood, enjoyed overtaking many cars and lorries on the highway and was not demanding a stop on the way. As traffic was very modest and the weather conditions good - no freezing temperatures and thus safe roads - we reached our destination afer 5 hours and we could enjoy dinner with grandma Heidi.

Christmas Eve started early for us at 0600 and it seemed as if Jakob knew something special would happen that night. Markus did some shopping in Bregenz in the morning and he went into town again with Jakob in the afternoon to visit the donkey in the city centre where met Flo and his friends for a tradition: mulled wine and lots of chats just before Christmas kicks off. Once the boys returned home they got ready for the big night, got into neat clothes (coincidentally in partner look) and while it started snowing nicely outside we all waited for the arrival of the "Christkind". When we heard the bells ringing in the living room - which was locked all day - Jakob not only got nervous but also a bit scared. Kerstin had to cary him when slowly opening the door in order to find a beautifully decorated and enlightened christmas tree with many presents underneath.

Like father - like son

Our sunshine was fascinated by the looks and when we started singing christmas carrols alongside Katrin´s guitartunes he was all excited and full of joy. Jakob soon detected the parcels that were left underneath the tree and enthusiastically unwrapped the child table & chairs, pencils, a blue doll´s pram, cans of spanish olivs with anchoas, a xylophone, books, CDs and pictures. He actually did not even know what to use first and was running around in the living room like crazy so that he almost diregarded the food which was brought to the table in the meantime: sausages, potatoes and horseradish. After dinner he continued playing but it was pretty obvious that he was dead tired and we soon brought him to bed while the adult´s presents were unwrapped. The night was long and Jakob took another prominent role lateron.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus