Christmas Party in the village

Today was the annual village Christmas party for the kids. Every year they read a story, have a snack, and then the Père Noël comes to give the kids their presents. Since yesterday, Benjamin has been telling us "want some presents!" (sounds more like "peasants") and when we got to the building, he sounded like a broken record! He definitely knew what we were there for.

So after semi-patiently waiting through the story and the snack, he got to go get his present.

And Noah went to get his present.

This was Benjamin last year.... do you see a resemblance to Noah?

Benjamin opening his (very large) present.

Noah chewing on part of his present.

Noah (and others) playing with his present.

The loot! Benjamin got a farm set, and Noah got a musical activity toy. They give really nice gifts!

This does not happen everywhere in France - it's an advantage to living in a small village as opposed to a big city. The budget stretches much further.

And it is COLD outside! (Not as cold as it was when we left Chicago (16-17°F) but it was 28° out when we got home tonight (-2°C for you European-types) and it started sleeting and then snowing, so the ground looks like this again now.

Hope we will be able to get out to church tomorrow! Our village gets plowed out pretty quickly, but I'm not sure that they go all the way into the forest, though, so while we might be able to get out of our village, we might end up stuck further along.