Back to the Christmas, Part 1

Stollen

First Christmas this year was something a bit different. Bright and early, we packed up our traditional Christmas stollen, and the kids, and headed downtown to Anne's place for Christmas morning. Gramma had slept over there.

After opening presents, and brunching up on pizza omelets and garlic bread, we walked over to the skating rink. Both kids were enthusiastic this year about trying to skate. And both did really well, for really their first time seriously attempting it. Istra particularly, with her exciting new second hand skates, just did not want to stop. We went around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around the rink. She even skated a little bit on her own. It was actually pretty fun (and not as entirely crowded as I feared it was going to be). 

You can see all the pictures here.

Stollen note: Selena tried to health up the stollen this year. She used dried cherries rather candied/maraschino cherries; and some of the loaves were made with 50% whole wheat flour. I unexpectedly found I liked the whole wheat stollen better than the pure white. Perhaps it was pscyhological. As usual, of course, a simple lemon icing sugar topping was applied to all stollens.