Getting Christmas-y

The center of Prague right now is a happy maze of starry-eyed people, grilled sausages, twinkling lights, wooden stalls, mulled wine and a behemoth, baubled tree to anchor the whole sparkly spectacle. It's superb! 

True, this only our second Christmas season together in Prague, but nonetheless, we have carved out a couple of routines to make the season merry and bright when we're so bleeping far away from home.

We "write" our Christmas cards on cardstore.com. As most of our friends and family are back in the USA, it's a lot more affordable to have them printed and mailed through this web service. We choose some pictures for the front, type a letter on the back, enter a bunch of addresses and - voila! Cards are done. (And there's a 40% of sale on right now.)

We go to Old Town Square to 1) see the big, bright tree, 2) listen to our students sing on the performance stage and 3) drink a hot red wine concoction called svařák, pronounced SVAHR-zhack.

We attend our staff Christmas party, which has (awesomely) been in the Žižkov Television Tower for the past two years. The tower was built by the Communists to intercept radio signals and now houses a glitzy restaurant, an observation deck with bird-eye views and a chic one-room hotel.

Via

We tuck into Deminka, a local Czech spot that has one of the most lovely atmospheres around, not to mention amazing dill soup (kulajda) and fried cheese (smažený sýr).

And we book Christmas travel plans. This year, BW's younger brother will be joining us Dec. 19-Jan. 4 and we'll all be setting off to Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow together. Until then, season's greetings!