The Jarvii 
We spent Christmas in Oberstdorf, Germany, a small town in the German Alps. My mother-in-law is German, and she had family who used to live and vacation here. So we all spent a week with all the cousins.
Germans big Christmas celebrations happen on Christmas Eve, so very few things were open. We were able to have an early Christmas Eve dinner at a restaurant, but we needed to leave by 7pm so the staff could be with their families for the holiday.
On Christmas Day we took a horse drawn carriage up one of the local mountains to have lunch. It was lovely looking at the scenery as the children sang Christmas carols. The ride was a bit too long for my liking (almost 2 hours), and at one point all but one adult had to take a short taxi ride up the steepest part of the mountain as the horses would be unable to bring all of us up.
Once we reached our destination we all enjoyed lunch at a small cafe/restaurant, eating typical Bavarian fare like schnitzel, spätzel, and beer. Afterwards the kids played at a nearby playground, frolicking in the snow, building snowmen, and having a small snowball fight.
The rest of the week we spent skiing. First off, the kids and I have never ever skied before. We initially had the kids in ski school (or as the Germans say, skischule) for three days with Alpin Skischule Oberstdorf. My mother-in-law said that they were the best ski school, but there are others in town to choose from. Alpin did a great job teaching O and S. S was on Söllereck doing blue runs by day three. I ended up signing them up for an additional day of ski school, so O was on Söllereck doing blue runs by the end. The lessons are mostly in German, but they did a great job speaking English that my kids were able to understand and do what was required of them to ski safely and well. Overall, my kids absolutely love skiing and can’t wait to do it again.
Also J was too young to do ski school, as you have to be 4 years old to enroll.
I did two days of ski school with Alpin as well. By day two I was Nebelhorn doing a blue run. I still maintain that my people do not belong up on a snowy mountain trying to ski down. But I did it and didn’t hurt myself (a win!). The one thing I kind of regret looking back on this trip, is not being able to ski at one mountain where you go from Germany into Austria. Maybe if I had done as many ski school days as the kids, I would have been able to do that as it was a red run.
My husband did a day of lessons to refresh his skiing skills. On day 2 and 3 he was off skiing in Austria (the border was 10 minutes from our apartment) and Germany. However, he did suffer a calf muscle tear from skiing. The good news was the local hospital was really good at providing care–he was seen and went to the pharmacist to get medicines all in an hour. But before he hurt himself, he did take some amazing pictures of the snowy mountains where he was skiing.
Other than skiing we saw a big international ski jumping event called the Vierschanzentournee. It comprises of four World Cup competitions in four different towns between Germany and Austria over a week. Lucky for us, Oberstdorf happens to be one of those towns that typically hosts. So that was interesting and different. We got to see a few Americans jump. It was also kind of funny seeing how these people were really into ski jumping with their cheering and stuff. It’s also in a legit “stadium” complete with concessions and things. O was actually quite intrigued and into the whole thing. S, not so much.
Overall, we had such a great time in Germany. It was nice to be out in the snow and outside in general while the sun was shining. If you’re ever interested in going, I highly recommend. Apparently skiing is much cheaper in Europe (and definitely in Oberstdorf) than it is in America. Just keep in mind the Munich airport is a 2 hour car ride, which wasn’t quite as fun getting to when trying to come back to the US.