Roselle

Even though we're going to New York to spend Christmas with my brother, we couldn't resist getting a little Christmas tree.  We started the tradition last year of naming the tree so this year we present Roselle.

Maisie made up a little poem for her:  

Roselle, Ma Belle, Sapin de Noël 

which means Roselle my beautiful Christmas Tree.

Here she is with just lights:

And here she is fully decorated:

Nice work, Maisie!

We had quite a bit of snow a couple of weeks ago but then came the rain and washed it all away.  Here are a couple of nighttime shots of the snow when it was really coming down.  Not great but we still get so excited when it snows so we thought we'd share the joy.

This is the snow in our courtyard:

And this is the view from our guest room window:

OK, time to snuggle up on the couch and watch our favorite Christmas movie, ELF!  Hope you're enjoying the Holiday Season wherever you may be.

Bern Onion Market

Every year on the third Monday in November there is an Onion Festival in Bern.  I went with a friend after we dropped our girls at school.  It was a cold, slightly wet day but it didn't stop the locals from enjoying their event.  I forgot my camera but I took a couple of photos with my phone and since I'm tired of looking at the Halloween post I thought I'd share them with you.

The market basically consists of stall after stall of these onion/shallot/garlic braids.  Some with dried flowers and herbs on them, too.  This particular vendor jazzed it up with a garlic hat.  I love it!

I've never seen so much garlic in my life.  I thought it was silly to have so many people selling the same thing but by the end of the day most of the stalls were empty!  You could also buy onion soup, onion tarts, onion/garlic spread, onion jelly, dried onion flakes (do I sound like Forrest Gump?)...pretty much anything you can imagine made from onions!

I bought this little beauty

and have already used an entire head of garlic.  So good!