Scottish Christmas

This year was our first year without family at the holidays.  Thank goodness we have lovely friends who invited us to Edinburgh for Christmas to celebrate with them.  They absolutely spoiled us and we had a great time!

German Market!  One of the things we share with Gary and Gary is a love of good food!  Proper Christmas gluttony began here with sausages and sweets and didn't stop until we were back in Barcelona.  Yum!

 Riding the "Big Wheel" and loving it!

 The view from up top.

Here are our little lovelies dancing and playing after tea at an awesome place called The Dome.  I really wish I hadn't been so shy about taking pictures while we were there.  The decorations were ornate and incredible, we had proper tea sandwiches, scones with cream, and (of course) a pot of tea each.  It was totally charming and made for a wonderful memory.

 Christmas haul.

 Santa brought just what the girls wanted, a baby sister for each of their babies.

 Christmas or not there's always time for ridiculous games with the kids ...

 ... or feeding the birdies.

The food fest continued with homemade pasta (yes, that's bubbly -- plenty of wine was consumed, too) ...

 ... and this a.freaking.mazing dinner!  This dish, smoked haddock with a crazy-amazing cream sauce, tons of wilted spinach and samphire (which is an amazing, salty, little sea veggie), and potatoes.  In the top 3 meals of all time!  WOW!  Do you think I could fit another amazing in here!?!  It was really that good!

 Best company!

 Happily helping Gary prep dessert.

 Sweet friends.

Typical tourists ... we did get a bit of that in, tourism that is: some nice walks, a nice pint, the Royal Museum ... we'll have to do more one day when we return ... in the summer.  (We've gotten to be quite wussy when it comes to the cold.)

 The girls loved Billie the terrier.

 Sweeties.

 More Sweeties -- and a little more "tourism."  It seems like the Botanical Garden would be a spectacular place to visit in the spring and summer.

 Puddle jumping in the new wellies!  Too.much.fun!

Peek-a-boo.  One of the girls favorite pastimes while in the house: snuggling up, entombing themselves on this cozy, little couch, and then giggling mightily while they played, "You can't see me," with Gary.  So cute!

It was such a great trip that Aoife actually cried when we left, it can be hard to leave a place you've been so well cared for and loved, even when it means you're heading home.  We are so grateful to have been able to make the trip, hopefully we'll have the opportunity to return the favor and host a Barcelona Christmas for our dear friends in the near future.

XO

January? Already?

We´ve arrived on the other side of the holiday season around here.  With our mish-mash of Anglo-American-European-embracing-of-Spanish-and-Catalan-Culture it's quite a long holiday season.

Things kick-off with Thanksgiving and then there's a bit of a reprieve before Christmas with Tió, New Year´s -- an even bigger deal here than other places, perhaps because it's the first big holiday of the season celebrated by everyone -- and then finally, the capstone, Kings Day.  Last year we were trying to navigate everything being new.  Everything, not just some of the holidays and traditions, there was a sense of adventure, exhilaration, and growth mixed with all the exhaustion. This year the question is how to make it all work for us.  Put bluntly, the holiday season was a little long and overdone for us this year.  On the upside, we enjoyed many celebrations with new friends and old -- many people we love -- and I think we may have figured out how to work out a fit in the future.

Thanksgiving -- this one's important to us and we'll make it work every year:

 The girls with sweet friend Wren and one of their new favorite people in the world, "Auntie Clare!"

Not only did we make The Bird work but it was, I think, the best we´ve ever done.  Quite a pleasant surprise given the fact that we thought we might´nt manage at all.

 Classics and a bunch of vegan options.

Good food, wine, and friends.

Some shots I had to add:

 Tree decorating antics!  Ceee-ute!

She insisted on this picture.  We were celebrating after the kids Sant Nicolau pageant at school.

I'll add some odds and ends about our Scottish Christmas in my next post.  Goodness knows that was lovely!

Xx