Earlier in December

December began with a short visit from Ian, Jeff's good friend from Northern Ireland, with a large box of Christmas presents and a bottle of homemade ginger "wine" - a Christmas must-have for Jeff - from Granny and Grandad.  Ellen's interest in any moving vehicle was heightened when she got to sit in the driver's seat in Ian's truck/lorry.  She loved it! I think her great grandma would be jealous ;o)

We celebrated Jeff's 41st birthday with a yummy steak supper and a coconut cream cake made by his adoring wife.

Illness had plagued our family for at least 3 weeks from the end of November.  We all had a horrible cold spread out over 2 weeks. Then a short bout of the tummy bug hit us a week later, which included Ellen being sick in the car, then asking me, "What's that?", as I frantically drove the last mile home.

 A sick Doodle sleeping for the 3rd time that day

On Saturday, 7th December, I took a day of holiday and we took the train to Birmingham to show Ellen the German Christmas market.  What I imagined to a be fun, relaxing day out was anything but that.  The train was so crowded from Shrewsbury we didn't initially have a seat. Luckily a very kind lady gave me and Ellen her seat, while she and Jeff stood packed like sardines for the hour-long ride to Birmingham.  That was just the beginning of the crowds.  The Christmas market was already very crowded for 10:45am, but we still managed to buy a couple of bratwursts and a box of Krapfen within the first few minutes of being there.   

 It was so crowded we could hardly see into the stalls, but we made our way to the center of the market in Victoria Square anyway.

So much for showing Ellen the sights and sounds of the market!

 

 An expensive, tiny mug of "Feuerzange"... fire tongue.  This is similar to Glühwein, but at real Christmas markets, it's served in a bowl with a cube of rum-soaked sugar set alight on the tongue (like a handle) of the bowl.  Again, expectations differed to reality.

 Ellen woke mid-Feuerzange; luckily we saved her some pretzel.

 Just as we were headed back to the "Bull Ring", the main shopping mall/area in Birmingham near the train station, it began to rain.  The forecast was wrong a-gain!  We (and everybody else in Birmingham) were trying to find a free table, later simply one free chair anywhere in the entire mall, including cafes, restaurants and in the mall itself.  After over an hour of searching, a very tired, hungry, thirsty, and utterly fed-up pregnant mom and wife pointed to an empty wall in a hallway near a set of elevators/lifts and exclaimed, "I'm about to sit down right there!"... and she did!  Yeah, I was almost to the point of tears. Luckily we had our Krapfen from the market and a few other things to nibble on, as well as a drink and food for Ellen. Ellen was an angel and looked at us like this was entirely normal.  After feeling revived, we ventured out into the mall again... there were even snaking lines/queues for the escalators!  We eventually gave in and headed back to the train station.  A very nice mom and her daughter switched seats with us so we could have a table to eat our sandwiches on rather than squishing the three of us into two seats.  We still had to share the 2 extra seats with another mum and daughter and put Ellen on our laps, but at least we had seats and a table. This picture was taken just as we were coming into Shrewsbury, once the train had mostly emptied. I am glad that we still took the chance for a family day out on my day off, but next year we'll think again about even going near a market, mall or city centre on a Saturday 3 weeks before Christmas. 

Every, single morning while Jeff and I are showering and getting dressed, Ellen spends the majority of the time on our bed with Blankie on her lap scrolling between pictures and her apps, mostly Fisher Price.

At the Barney Tots playgroup Christmas party, Ellen got to meet Santa for the first time. I was pretty sure it'd go the way it did... but at least she got a book from Santa's elf.

 She recovered soon after.  Ellen even got to have lunch with her friends, Eva and Elli at the party.

Not that I've made or decorated too many gingerbread houses in my life, I wanted to start a tradition of doing so with Ellen this year. I built the (IKEA-bought) gingerbread house the day before the decorating, but Ellen stuck on most of the sweets herself.   

 A sweet, proud smile

 Yay!

 The beautiful finished product