Christmas is far too long in Germany.

It starts Dec. 1 with the first window in the advent calendar, which sparks a month of daily fights and disappointments about what was actually in there. The season reaches a preliminary peak Dec. 6 with the arrival of Nikolaus (where kids clean their shoes the night before and wake up to find them filled with oranges, peanuts and chocolate). Then there's the Christmas party in the daycare sometime around mid-December. All of this whips the kids into a level of anticipation so intense it makes them cranky and irritable.

Every day. For a month.

When Christmas finally came around I was so worn out and sick of whining and screaming and crying that it would have been fine if Santa Claus had sat this one out. But at least Uncle Michael came (and took all these pictures).