Merry Christmas from the Leighs

2014 Leigh Family Christmas Card

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe help to make the season bright. 

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow will find it hard to sleep tonight. 

They know that Santa's on his way. He's loaded lots of toys & goodies on his sleigh.

And every mother's child is gonna spy to see if reindeer really know how to fly.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase to kids from one to ninety-two

Although it's been said many times many ways, Merry Christmas to you!

Merry Christmas from the Leighs

2013 Leigh Family Christmas Card

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, 

Let your heart be light. From now on, our troubles will be out of sight. 

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, 

Make the Yule-tide gay. From now on, our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore.

Faithful friends who are dear to us, gather near to us once more.

Through the years we all will be together. If the Fates allow.

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Weihnachtsmarkts 2013 Edition

If we can't be in the States celebrating the Christmas season with family, Germany is a pretty good second place. In fact Christmas in Germany is pretty spectacular. The way they celebrate the Christmas season is one of my favorite things about Deutschland. A large part of their celebration revolves around Advent and they are pretty creative with the use of Advent calendars. One town nearby turns their beautiful rathaus (town hall) into a living breathing calendar with each window assigned a number. Every day the children gather around the window and wait for presents to be thrown out. Oh the life of a German kinder.

Shortly after the beginning of the Advent season Christmas markets // Christkindlesmarkt // Weihnachtsmark open all around the country. They are usually held in the town center, but sometimes you can get lucky and find one in a palace. The streets are lined with stalls showcasing beautiful handcrafted ornaments and delicious, traditional German food & drinks. This year I've made it a point to try and get an ornament from each market we visited, but I'd be lying if I didn't say eating and drinking was what it's all about. For food we normally seek out the bratwurst, schweinesteak, and my favorite the kartoffelpuffer (potato pancake). For drinks we've sampled a lot this year between gluhwein, apfelwein, and eierpunsch. The last wasn't much of a crowd favorite.  My iPhone pictures don't do the markets justice, but when you're surrounded by friends, eating good food, and soaking in the Christmas spirit it's a fantastic experience. 

Thurn and Taxis Palace in Regensburg

Nürnberg Weihnachtsmarkt

Happy Thanksgiving 2013

It's official, Thanksgiving 2013 topped Thanksgiving 2012 by a long shot. Being separated and eating sub-par food last year, Thanksgiving just came up short on the holiday spirit. This year we went all out. A small Thanksgiving feast for two. :) And I'm happy to report that for my first Thanksgiving meal there were no disasters. Ham in the oven, turkey in the crockpot, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and pecan pie were all a success. We enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving lunch together, lounged on the couch while the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was on TV in the background, and rounded out the night with a few friends coming over. It turned out to be a really nice, relaxing day. We have so much to be thankful for.

I am also excited to report that we have adopted the "Cook Family" tradition of post-Thanksgiving festivities. Black Friday morning we bypassed the crazies at the PX and headed off for breakfast at a local backeri (bakery) and a little Christmas tree shopping. We were not impressed by the trees we saw at the first place we stopped at and I was beginning to get worried that I would have to give in and buy a fake Christmas tree for the first time EVER in my life. Oh, the horror! ;) Luckily, on our drive back we passed by a somewhat hidden Christmas tree lot on the side of the road. Here we found our plump little tree that fit almost perfectly in the car. Only about a foot hung out of the window.  

Now that Thanksgiving has passed it's now "legal" to bust out some Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, & Tony Bennett holiday tunes and celebrate all things Christmas! The next few weekends are sure to be filled with tree decorating, present wrapping, and visiting Germany's many Christmas markets. Dare I even say, bring on the snow? A tiny part of me may want to experience a White Christmas... just once. 

2012 Recap in a Christmas Letter

Since this blog serves as a scrapbook of sorts I thought it would be fun to include our Christmas letter from this year. It actually recaps our year quite well.  I hope you can pick up on the sarcastic undertones. RC and I wrote it together, but he should get most of the credit. I love his sense of humor. Both the letter and Christmas card were his ideas and it was fun for us to collaborate on both even though we were miles apart!

Dear family & friends,

I hope that this holiday letter finds you well. Since we no longer reside in the Charleston area we thought it would be appropriate to provide a quick synopsis of the past year. Overall 2012 was quite uneventful for the Leigh family. In April Ross went to school to learn how to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. He jumped not once, but five times. I guess it's a good thing he's not scared of heights. In May, we traveled approximately 4,453 miles or 7,167 kilometers to the Land of Schnitzel and Fascism. It was only a 9 hour flight. Ross did not jump out of this airplane only because he spent most of the flight sprawled out over two seats while Emma sat on the floor of the aircraft. We saw castles, paintings, libraries, mountains and a bunch of old buildings. We learned that Germany has one of the strongest economy in the EU and Germans as a whole are pretty OCD about everything. It’s been interesting exploring this country, but honestly you can genuinely sum up most of Germany in two words ‘SECOND BEST’.  

Emma got a job as a teller at Community Bank after an extremely long job hunt of four days. Her resume and people skills were weak; however, since most of the other Army wives were going back to the states in preparation for their husband's deployment the manager at the bank reluctantly gave Emma the job.  In June, the Army decided that life in Germany wasn't exciting enough and sent Ross to Afghanistan. Ross spent the first half of his deployment on an extremely large COP with a booming population of 25 soldiers. Emma spent the summer months drinking her sadness away. She could not bare the thought that Ross would be home in the spring and she would not have the house to herself anymore.

When Emma was not morning the return of her husband she was out traveling with a few close friends she had known for a very long time. Most of her traveling companions she had known at least 5 days. Ross became a Platoon Leader in September. His Platoon consists of 20 of the finest soldiers in all of Afghanistan. He will remain the platoon leader throughout the remainder of the deployment and for at least six months once he redeploys. (Unless he gets fired of course.) Ross has learned a lot since becoming a Platoon Leader. He learned that you should never place someone's mattress in the snow and to never, under any circumstance, refer to your boss as "your sidekick." 

In late October, Mrs. Dianna decided that Emma's drinking problem had become serious and she needed an intervention. Seven days later, Emma and Dianna were in Poland for Emma's rehab, which consisted of driving from Germany to Poland just to purchase pottery. During Ross’ deployment Emma also perfected two German phrases every American Army wife needs to know; "How much?" and "Do you speak English?” .

Despite her severe emotional bonding to H&M, pommes, and radlers (a delicious concoction of beer and lemonade), Emma decided to move back to Charleston, South Carolina for the rest of the deployment. She is now taking reservations for hour increments of quality time with Germany’s favorite red head.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

                        Love,

Ross and Emma 

Merry Christmas from the Leighs

It's Beginning..

to look a lot like CHRISTMAS :)

+ Nuremberg Christmas Market

Merry Christmas, all!

Happy Holidays, everyone! 

We are thoroughly enjoying the holidays and are really looking forward to an oyster roast on New Years! Oh, and did I mention we are in SC? It's so good to be home. Luckily RC had almost 3 weeks off from work so we were able to travel home for a nice long visit. Almost as long as the Christmas Break we've been used to having in college. We began our Christmas Exodus with a trip to Snowshoe, West Virginia with RC's family for some snowboarding (him) and skiing (me)!

We had a wonderful time hitting the slopes together every morning and walking around the village for some Starbucks in the evening. We also threw in a few night-ski sessions here and there. The weather was oddly warm (like high 40s) and we only had one day of semi-bad weather (rain). The plus side of "bad weather" is no one is on the mountain! RC and I took advantage of that and got in a ton of runs that day! If you haven't been to Snowshoe it's a great ski resort! It's definitely in the middle of nowhere (and there's no cell service AT ALL), but they've created a great atmosphere in a place they call "the village" where everything is located- restaurants, hotels, shopping, and rentals! Here's a cheesy picture I stole from Google to give you an idea.  We made it back to Charleston on Christmas Eve Eve and settled in with my family. We took our annual family Christmas picture and RC and I took our first Christmas picture together as a married couple! Unfortunately we didn't take many pictures together Christmas morning neither at my house, my grandparents, or the in-laws. But believe we had a wonderful time and Santa was very good to us!

Christmas Decorations

Our Christmas decorations come to you courtesy of Walmart and Hobby Lobby! Lately I've been into the rustic feel and both stores had some great stuff! The cute pinecones on the tree were from Walmart and are actually clip-ons that fit right onto the tree branches. They were under a $1 a piece and I'm actually thinking about going back to get some more! Mr. Countdown Snowman is probably my favorite! I found him at Hobby Lobby and I think he's just adorable. (Obviously I took this picture a couple days ago because now we're even closer to Christmas! Yay!) Our Christmas decorations are definitely a little sparse, but I think that's something that will change the longer we're together! After all, this is only our first Christmas together! :) Next on my shopping list is to actually go out and purchase an 'Our First Christmas' ornament!

Also, on the Christmas note... I don't think I really need to go out and say it, but...

Michael Buble + Christmas.... can it get any better?

Holiday Traditions

I absolutely love traditions and my cousin is definitely more obsessed than I. So on my Dad's side of the family we have a number of traditions that sticks around. Here are a couple:

• My cousin has dubbed it Christmas Tree Morning. Everyone gathers at Cracker Barrel the morning after Thanksgiving. After we chow down on some good ol' Southern breakfast complete with grits and biscuits, we start Christmas tree shopping. (My goodness I'm really craving some biscuits now!) I have a pretty vocal family and when all of us gather together to do anything it's too much fun. Also, there's a constant battle over the size of the tree, and when the kids win there's always strategic maneuvering on how to get it into the house. 
• Christmas morning my family opens present at our house. We open each present one and at a time. I love it because there's no rushing around ripping through presents and you get to watch the genuine excitement on the face of the person who's opening the present. Once all of the presents are opened we head over to my grandparents' house. Everyone (my dad has 4 brothers and a sister) meets for breakfast and brings a dish. Let me tell you, there is some good food in that kitchen! Presents come after we eat, and all in all its one of my favorite traditions. My grandparents don't have a large house, but I absolutely love being crammed into their living room with at least 5 of us (grandkids) sitting on the coach together and wrapping paper covering the floor. Although half of us grandkids are "adults" now, Christmas morning hasn't changed one bit and I love that!

I'm anxious and excited about the traditions RC and I will start together. We have no idea where we will be next Christmas or if we will be able to get home. Although I'm anxious that these family traditions I mentioned may not be apart of my Christmas next year, I'm excited that RC and I will be starting our own. It's a little bittersweet, but we've already promised each other than we will be making a big deal out of Christmas. Even though we won't have children that's no reason to lighten the Christmas festivities. I don't have many of my old pictures on my Mac yet, but here's a picture of RC and I in our Tacky Christmas sweaters! :)