First off, I'm a huge fan of blown glass ornaments. It's borderline addiction. I love the different shapes and designs people come up with, the colors and the craftmanship TOTALLY amaze me.
Back in 2002, a great friend of mine got me a gorgeous collection of blown glass ornaments that came in a custom storage crate (looks like a wooden crate) and all the individual pieces have their own specific place for storage. LOVE it! She got it for me cause that was MY first set of ornaments. Ever since then, I've been slowly adding to the collection whenever I find something unique or as a reminder to an event in my life :)
Well, when Eric and I were in Aachen last week, I remember seeing some glass ornaments I wanted to get but COMPLETELY brain farted to go back and get them once we were done making our rounds. Once we got back home, it dawned on me that I forgot to get 'em :(
I happened to be "in the area" today since I was at Brunssum (a NATO base) to address an issue with my work card.. since that went to hell in a hand basket and I didn't need to go into work , I figured I'd head to Aachen since it was only 20 minutes away verses going back at a different time. Just for reference, Aachen is a lil over an hour from my house, so might as well hit it up since I was just down the road from it. So, I managed to find a parking spot in the streets of Aachen.. and that alone was a miracle! LOL. Anyone who has driven in Aachen knows what I'm talking about.. narrow cobblestone streets and the parking garage is NOT meant for SUV's. It's definitely meant for hybrid, smart cars, coupes, sedans..all smaller types of vehicles. I'll put it this way, if I attempted to take my Xterra into the parking garage, the rack on the roof would get torn off. Yup. SO, street parking it is! Luckily, I found a spot pretty quick and it was only a block away from the Christmas Market (thank god). Once I was parked, I scurried up to the market, knew exactly where I needed to go since I only wanted to go back to that specific vendor and get outta dodge.
The lady was so nice! She said I looked like a kid in a candy store cause the look I had on my face with all the different ornaments, lol.
Ok, so don't laugh.. the main reason I went there was to get a Pickle. Yes, a Pickle. It's a German tradition to have a pickle in your tree, but I never managed to find one stateside. Well, I finally found one..and go figure.. in Germany, lol. Here's the reason why Germans have pickles in their Christmas trees: "A pickle used as decoration on a Christmas Tree seems odd at first, but it is an old German tradition. It is customary to hide a pickle among the branches of the tree on Christmas Eve. The first child on Christmas Day to find the Christmas pickle receives an extra gift. The reason for 3 sizes of the pickle are for the age of the children. The largest pickles are for the toddlers. As they grow up, the pickle size gets smaller."
Back in 2002, a great friend of mine got me a gorgeous collection of blown glass ornaments that came in a custom storage crate (looks like a wooden crate) and all the individual pieces have their own specific place for storage. LOVE it! She got it for me cause that was MY first set of ornaments. Ever since then, I've been slowly adding to the collection whenever I find something unique or as a reminder to an event in my life :)
Well, when Eric and I were in Aachen last week, I remember seeing some glass ornaments I wanted to get but COMPLETELY brain farted to go back and get them once we were done making our rounds. Once we got back home, it dawned on me that I forgot to get 'em :(
I happened to be "in the area" today since I was at Brunssum (a NATO base) to address an issue with my work card.. since that went to hell in a hand basket and I didn't need to go into work , I figured I'd head to Aachen since it was only 20 minutes away verses going back at a different time. Just for reference, Aachen is a lil over an hour from my house, so might as well hit it up since I was just down the road from it. So, I managed to find a parking spot in the streets of Aachen.. and that alone was a miracle! LOL. Anyone who has driven in Aachen knows what I'm talking about.. narrow cobblestone streets and the parking garage is NOT meant for SUV's. It's definitely meant for hybrid, smart cars, coupes, sedans..all smaller types of vehicles. I'll put it this way, if I attempted to take my Xterra into the parking garage, the rack on the roof would get torn off. Yup. SO, street parking it is! Luckily, I found a spot pretty quick and it was only a block away from the Christmas Market (thank god). Once I was parked, I scurried up to the market, knew exactly where I needed to go since I only wanted to go back to that specific vendor and get outta dodge.
The lady was so nice! She said I looked like a kid in a candy store cause the look I had on my face with all the different ornaments, lol.
Ok, so don't laugh.. the main reason I went there was to get a Pickle. Yes, a Pickle. It's a German tradition to have a pickle in your tree, but I never managed to find one stateside. Well, I finally found one..and go figure.. in Germany, lol. Here's the reason why Germans have pickles in their Christmas trees: "A pickle used as decoration on a Christmas Tree seems odd at first, but it is an old German tradition. It is customary to hide a pickle among the branches of the tree on Christmas Eve. The first child on Christmas Day to find the Christmas pickle receives an extra gift. The reason for 3 sizes of the pickle are for the age of the children. The largest pickles are for the toddlers. As they grow up, the pickle size gets smaller."
I also found a Beer Mug that I thought was rather fitting for Belgium, so I picked that up. I dont think you can tell in the picture, but there's glitter on the white foam so it puts a lil' extra "pazazz" to it, lol
Once I was done payin' the lady, this Coo Coo Clock caught my eye. It totally made me think of my Grandma since she has one in her living room :) Figured I needed to have a lil extra reminder of my Grandma in my Christmas tree, lol. Ya gotta admit, this is a pretty cool lookin' little ornament!
