Today is St. Nikolaus Tag--Santa Claus day. Last night children in Germany put their shoes on the front porch and then Santa came and left either sweets in their shoes, if they've been good, or straw in their shoes if they've been bad. It was evident to Garrett and me that they'd be getting straw, an especially harsh punishment for Jacob who has severe hay fever. Best case scenario it would be a 50/50 mix of straw and treats. However, due to an unexplained Santa oversight they each received a large bag of wrapped German chocolates. In the picture Garrett is video taping this rare phenomenon of Santa stupidity. The only thing we can figure is Santa was unaware the previous renters had moved.
The Friday after Thanksgiving we took the kids to the Medieval Christmas Market in Esslingen. Our favorite part was the fun Medieval Carnival Games. The picture below is Mouse Roulette. You put your money on the colored spot over the mouse hole that you think the mouse will go in. Whoever guesses right gets a prize. We also got to watch some medieval minstrels play on bagpipes--pretty cool, but so loud!
One of our favorite Medieval games was where they set a real egg in a carved out spot of a wooden stump that was about 10 feet away from you. They gave you some heavy metal balls and you tried to smash the egg by throwing the metal balls and hitting it. These last 2 pictures of Joe and Sam are hard to make out exactly what they're doing, but Joe chose to throw "Chinese Stars" and you try to get them to stick in the logs and Sam is throwing axes at logs and trying to get them to stick in. Mason threw stars and Jacob threw axes also. 
It was a boys paradise. Thank heavens OSHA hasn't seen this Christmas market--they might think it was dangerous or something to give sharp metal objects to children between the ages of 5 and 9. The guy who did the axe throwing booth was so awesome, giving the kids extra turns and making a big deal out of all their direct hits. I think he liked it that the noisy Americans cheered so loudly that they brought extra customers to his booth. 
