Swiss Christmas

We spent our Christmas in Zurich and it will probably be the only Christmastime in our lives where we don't travel to see our wonderful families. We did enjoy the relative calm of not traveling, but we did miss gathering with all of our families. Our Christmas as a family was pretty small since we elected to spend most of our gift budget on traveling experiences this year instead of gifts. Carsten received 10 new matchbox trucks from us (since they are small and travel well!) and a he got to open a few other gifts that were sent back from the US in October. We even got to skype with family while we opened our gifts - thank goodness for technology! We borrowed a tree from our friends Kai and Vanessa, so it did feel like Christmas even though we weren't doing any of our usual Christmas activities. We also were invited to a couple of Andy's coworkers for brunch on two separate days, and it was so nice to see and spend time with all of them. Here's a few photos from our Swiss Christmas:

Our Swiss tree

Carsten got to open a few trucks early on Christmas Eve.

Lovely Lake Zurich on Christmas Eve. No snow, but quite gorgeous :).

Christmas Eve outing to the lake.

Skyping with family while we opened gifts!

A couple of days after Christmas we also got to celebrate Eleanor's 2nd birthday a little early which was super fun :). Vanessa made wonderful cupcakes (from scratch!) that we all really enjoyed. We will miss our friends in Zurich!

Eleanor's 2nd birthday!

As part of our own family Christmas celebration we treated ourselves to a dinner out at the Zeughauskellar, which is a touristy but very tasty Swiss restaurant in downtown Zurich. We had been there once in the summer and wanted to go back there since we knew we liked it and it was very kid friendly. Even though we didn't have reservations, we were able to get in (so lucky!) and have a lovely meal together.

Getting ready to eat!

My boys :).

We had a lovely and relaxing Christmas in Zurich and although we missed family, we made the most of it!