Merry Christmas!

Welcome to 2024 everyone! I feel like it’s going to be a banger!

The Cinamon Bun Family had a wonderful Christmas, and I thought I’d share some highlights. As in years past, we enjoyed the Swedish tradition of Julbord. This is a buffet of Swedish Christmas goodies hosted at a restaurant. In this case, my Cinnamon Brother booked us a lovely table at the Blå Porten restaurant. It was delicious, and we enjoyed a lovely outdoor garden with the traditional Swedish glögg to start our evening.

The venue was fantastic, and so was the food.

Here are our lovely hosts, my brother and sister-in-law:

Shortly before Christmas, we took a jaunt to Berlin. Mrs. CB’s company has an office in Berlin, so she combined a work trip with a bit of fun. I’d never been to Germany, and Mrs. Cinnamon Bun wanted to see what all the fuss was about German Christmas markets. Let’s just say they do not disappoint.

On our first day, Mrs. CB skipped off to her local office for the afternoon. The Cinnamon Sticks and I set about exploring Berlin - after swimming in our hotel pool, of course. It’s not a vacation if there isn’t a pool.

We hit our first market just down the street from the Intercontinental Berlin, where we stayed. The market immediately pulled in the girls:

There are many different markets, each focusing on a different specialty. We were lucky because this one focussed on food!

They also displayed amazing handcrafted Christmas decorations. It's time to get GrandDad to up his game!

The next day, Mrs. CB joined us, and we enjoyed our second Christmas market at Bebelplatz. This market is focused on handcrafted artisan products. We collected many souvenirs.

We would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite market; they all were wonderful and unique. But Bebelplatz served us up a memorable lunch: Fondue! The restaurant that we ate at was a pop-up restaurant. It was constructed of tents but seemed as lovely as many permanent restaurants we visited. The Cinnamon family were fans; we all enjoyed the cheese and bread!

Mommy and Daddy may have enjoyed some other things, too.

The next day saw us off to the Berlin Wall Museum. It was a well-done exhibit and very sobering. Mrs. CB and I remember the news broadcasts when the wall fell in 1989. It wasn’t that long ago!

That night, we headed to our final Christmas Market at Charlottenburg Palace. This one was a nice blend of food and crafts. We continued our souvenir shopping with gusto.

We also managed to hang out with one of Mrs. CB’s friend who lives in Berlin!

She took a wonderful picture of us:

Sooner than we wanted, we headed back to Stockholm. It was Christmas Eve!

There was snow on Christmas Eve! So we enjoyed a white Christmas. As is our tradition, we each opened a gift on Christmas Eve. It was tough to decide who would go first, but that is what “Rock, Paper, Scissors” is for, right?

Soon enough, we were all snuggled in bed. The Cinnamon Sticks wanted to sleep together!

I’ll let you guess how well that worked out.

Santa (and the grandparents) did not disappoint! The Cinnamon sticks were inundated with presents!

Eventually, we took a breath and enjoyed what has become a Momma Cinnamon Bun specialty: waffles!

And since it was a white Christmas, we enjoyed a lovely morning playing in the snow in the forest near our apartment.

Later, we enjoyed a lovely dinner with the extended Cinnamon Bun family.

We enjoyed a memorable holiday. We hope you did too!