German Christmas in South Riding: Part 1

Now five months in to our first year with an au pair from Bavaria, our family is practicing some popular German traditions.  For the first Advent Sunday, we invited friends over for sweets, coffee, and hot chocolate.  Hannah, our au pair, shared some German cookies sent from home, which paired nicely with the Candied Pecans shared with me by another fledgling blogger.  Chocolate-covered pretzels and wedges of a Toblerone bar rounded out the spread. After lighting one of the four candles symbolic of the four Sundays of Advent, we spent a few hours of our Sunday afternoon visiting with our back-alley neighbors the O'Neills while their son and our daughter ran around the kitchen with boxes on their heads.