Holly Jolly 🫎🎄🎅🏼🎶💝🥂🍾

Welcome back to another episode of A'lil Hoohaa's monthly photo blogging challenge. 

Our prompt for the month of December was Holly Jolly. I feel like we had this one before. Sure enough, it was in 2017! And again in 2021.

This year - like every year - I wanted to visit Christmas markets abroad. However, this requires preparation and usually fails because of this and the actual time it takes to go there. This year, however, I was determined! Back in October, I managed to get hold of tickets for “Ravenna Gorge” in the Black Forest (Germany) online. 

I had seen pictures of it on social media last year, it looked fabulous, and the scenic viaduct reminded me of the Coca-Cola commercial with Melanie Thornton's “Wonderful Dreams”. 

After a 95km (60 mile) drive, mostly through the rain, we arrived at the place known for being overrun with tourists. I suppose the ticketing system regulates the overtourism to some extent, but it still had plenty of visitors. 

Fortunately, the crowds spread out across the grounds, and the rain miraculously stopped and even produced some mystic evaporation fog rising. So we were able to make the most of our two-hour slot (yes, the organizers let the visitors come in in shifts) by wandering around - and, to be honest, queuing for food ;-) After trying to reduce my “evil carbohydrates” all year, I now enjoyed the Käsespätzle, a specialty famous in southern Germany, to the fullest!

On a Monday, I drove 135 km (85 miles) with my mother to Colmar in Alsace (France). No tickets necessary this time, and thanks to it being Monday, it wasn't very crowded. No thanks to it being Monday, most restaurants were closed, though, so the joke was on us. We managed to find a Thai / Italian / Alsatian snack bar. The curry was delicious, but when we emerged, we smelled like two giant French Fries!

Our clothes didn't even manage to air out after our stroll through the Christmas-decorated old town. It was a scenic stroll though!

December wasn't all about enjoying, of course it was also a super busy month at work, even though for once there was a vacation ban for everybody, meaning I didn't have to cover for my colleague. One of my days off due to my working part-time, my to-do list was super long, and I felt stressed out. 

The night before, on our way home from hockey practice, we had to follow a "winter service vehicle" on the freeway. You know the one that spreads salt on the road? Well, half of the salt stuck to my car, and now I had to add a trip to the car wash to my list. 

As I pulled in, I was delighted to meet Frosty, the Snowman! He was delighted, too, about my choosing the GOLD program ;-)

Speaking of hockey and cars, of course the December schedule included a trip to Ascona in the Italian part of Switzerland, which was of course time-consuming, but oh so scenic as you can see in the video's intro.

This season has been a disaster in terms of organization and results, and I admire Colin that he keeps going.

Of course December was once again, a month full of surprises provided by our elves Cookie and Biscuit. On Friday 13th, which happens to be Taylor Swift's birthday, they dressed accordingly and hung friendship bracelets on the tree. Another highlight was the day they recreated the "throw Hans Gruber out of Nakatomi Tower" scene from Die Hard ;-)

Last year we started what might become a new tradition: We went out for Christmas Eve dinner - at the airport! I thought this year they were doing a much better job. There were more Christmas trees! Interestingly we ran into acquaintances at the restaurant. They usually fly abroad for the Holidays but couldn't do so this year, so they still wanted to enjoy a bit of these travel vibes.

After a delicious meal we actually went outside to one of our plane spotting locations. The colorful lights made it feel like at the runways it's Christmas all year long!

I hope you enjoyed my holly jolly pictures, and yes, there were six ;-) I leave it up to you to decide which one was the bonus photo! 

Thank you for being part of my blogging journey!

Now please check out my fellow bloggers' contributions to this month's topic.