Frohe Weihnachten!

That's Merry Christmas to you and me. We're well into our Austrian holiday celebration. Here's a shot of our Adventkranz, a wreath with four candles, one of which we'll light every Sunday until Christmas.

We also cheated a little bit and decorated our tree well before Christmas. In Austria, the parents decorate the tree and surprise the children with it on Christmas Eve.

We'll also be baking some hornchen cookies -- those are buttery Viennese nut crescents. Mmm...And with all the snow we've had in the last week, Madison is a regular winter wonderland, the kind we wish for every Christmas.

Christmas 2007: It's Austria

As loyal StalinBenester readers might know, we decided a year ago that every Christmas, we'll pick a different country and celebrate that nation's holiday traditions. In 2006, we chose Italy because we'd traveled there for our honeymoon that summer and wanted to remember warm, sunny walks in Positano and leisurely afternoons in Tuscany.

This year, we didn't travel much beyond Minneapolis, so there was no natural pick for us. We talked about doing something familiar, like Sweden or England; we thought about something much less conventional, like Syria or Brazil. In the end, we chose something in between and opted for Austria. (I've since realized that Austria and Switzerland are hosting the 2008 Euro Cup, so I suppose we could argue we're looking forward to that.)

This central European country's Christmas traditions mirror those of its neighbor, Germany, but it also is proud to be the home of the holiday classic, "Silent Night." There are some conflicting tales about the song's history, but by the time Christmas rolls around, we'll know the real story. In the meantime, we'll be getting ready for Santaklausen, crafting an Advent kranz (wreath) and making butterhornchen (Viennesse nut crescents.)

I also made Colin promise to watch "The Sound of Music," set in Austria (he's never seen it!) To me, that movie just feels like Christmas, probably because NBC used to show it every year over the holidays. The first year we had a VCR I taped it and watched it every day of Christmas vacation, going so far as to name my new Cabbage Patch Kid Brigitta...I think my Grandma Forster was about ready to break the tape by the end of her visit.

Fall -- all in one post

I guess we shouldn't consider ourselves bloggers with how little we post. After you see what we've done, you be the judge about whether we were busy enough to claim lack of time for regular postings.

I kicked off the fall with a trip to New York with my friend Jenny so I could visit my favorite spot, the Magnolia Bakery. Oh, and we went to see the Broadway production of "Grease!" and spent the weekend catching up with some of my friends there.

A few weeks later, we enjoyed wine, food and time with friends in Sonoma, where we rented a home for the weekend and toured wine country in a minivan.We also had a visit from my brother Sean and his wife, Molly, as well as the star of the show -- their daughter, Taylor. She loved watching football (the English kind) with her dad and Crazy Uncle Colin.

In between all that, we cooked up a storm in our new kitchen, watched football of all kinds, as well as played soccer on two teams. Colin also went to Florida for some management training now that he's the boss at his station.

Oh, and that 5% of work we still need to finish on our kitchen? We're working on it.

Our kitchen is (almost) done!

For those of you who've been following the progress of our kitchen, the latest update is that we're almost done! At this point, it's 95% complete, with just a few small details such as some new trim and baseboards that have yet to go in. After a summer of eating out, we're thrilled to have our kitchen back. (Colin cooked up a batch of white chicken chili in the crockpot today...mmm.) Thanks again to Bob and Ron who helped us by doing beautiful work on the floor, walls and just about everything else.

Here's a slideshow with some before and after shots -- it should be pretty easy to tell which is which!



In other news, we've been playing a lot of soccer this fall. It was a high scoring weekend for the StalinBenesters -- five goals in two games. On one of her goals today, Stacy broke her shoe -- fortunately one of the other team's players was willing to loan some tape so she could play the second half.

More pictures of the progress

The installers came back on Friday to finish up with the cabinets. Here's the final product!

More progress!

Today was a very exciting day in the StalinBenester household, as we not only regained use of our living room -- which had been home to boxes and boxes full of cabinets -- but the installers came to actually put them in. Wow. That's all I can say. What an amazing difference, a completely different kitchen. They still have a few doors to put on and some molding to put on the top, but it looks fantastic. They'll be back tomorrow, as will the electrician and the person to measure the countertops.
We'll post more pictures as more things get done!

Getting closer

Barring any major surprises today (I'm crossing my fingers here), our friends from Home Depot are due Thursday to install all of our cabinets, which have taken over our house. Thanks again to Bob and Ron for getting the place in shape -- they do amazing work and we are eternally grateful.