Third Christmas

We ended up with a white Christmas despite my hopes to the contrary.

Nothing short of a Christmas miracle... two boys sitting on the couch together, being nice, rather than trying to start WWIII all on their own.

Our third Christmas began the evening of the 25th with the arrival of our friends, Chris, Isabelle, Julia and Chloe Burkholder, and Isabelle's mom, Marie-Josée. Benjamin and Noah were dismayed to have to go to bed before they arrived, but they all got in plenty of play time the next day.

And more presents! Who doesn't like more presents?

And snow. We couldn't let the entire visit go by without at least one romp in the snow.

We love having the Burkholders over, among other reasons because their girls are so close in age to our boys. All the kids played well together. While we wait for a larger dining room table, the coffee table worked out pretty well as a kids' table.

Noah and Chloe played their own version of Connect 4, consisting of putting checkers in anywhere they felt like, and Noah calling out, "I won!" after a while regardless of the checkers' configuration.

Storytime with Isabelle.

Christmas, continued...

Since Frédéric was unable to go to work on Christmas Eve due to snow, and he had to work on Christmas day, we had our family Christmas a little bit early. We started with stockings

and then moved on to very exciting presents

which we of course then had to try out.

Now we are waiting for our friends the Burkholders to come visit us for a few days, before we head off to Germany to see our friends the Hummels.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas started the 21st this year, when Frédéric's brother and nieces came over.


The snow continued during the week, so the kids continued to have a good time playing outside. The earlier snow had melted some, so with the latest snowfall we are only at 19 cm (7 1/2 inches) now. We got an extra day with Frédéric at home when he made it halfway to work on Friday and had to turn around and come back due to trucks being all over the road (and not in places they were supposed to be).

The Next Ice Age and the Village Christmas Party

Last night Frédéric measured our snowfall, and it was up to 32 cm (just over 12.5 inches, for the standard-measurement-inclined among us). Wow! We have never had that much snow here before.
We were still able (barely) to make it out to gymnastics on Saturday, and then down to the village Christmas party for the kids that afternoon. After being unable to get the car into the driveway after the Christmas party, I called Frédéric at work to tell him to come home early, before the roads got worse. He made it without too much trouble, and the snow got worse after that. By Sunday the roads were totally impassable despite the best efforts of our dedicated municipal employee, so Frédéric was unable to go to work that afternoon, and we were unable to make it to church Sunday morning.

The boys have been taking full advantage of the snow:

skiing

and making snow angels.

As I mentioned, Saturday afternoon was the village Christmas party. Every year some of our local taxes comes back to our kids in the form of a Christmas party and gifts from le Père Noël. Frédéric had to work this year and miss the fun. The village "Comité des fêtes" (volunteers who head up village activities throughout the year) did a short play for the kids about le Père Noël's reindeer being ill - fortunately they found some mice to pull his sleigh, so Christmas was not lost.

Then the kids got a snack, the adults got coffee, and finally, the moment they were anxiously awaiting:

presents from le Père Noël! Noah was terrified of the Père Noël at gymnastics, but had no issues with this one, he couldn't wait for his turn.

They were both very pleased with their gifts. Benjamin got a "Cuisto Dingo" game ("Goliath Pop the Pig" in the U.S.), and Noah got a book with 365 Disney stories, and a stuffed "Stitch."

And I made Christmas cookies today (thanks, Mom) to share with Frédéric's brother and nieces who are coming over tomorrow.

and thus begins the Christmas season... but I'm hoping for a green Christmas!

And more snow

It snowed again on Wednesday - school wasn't disrupted since there is no school on Wednesdays anyway. Thursday there was no bus service (the bus is completely useless anyway since the bus stop is a 10-15 minute walk away, so that made no difference to us) and no school lunch, but school wasn't cancelled. We did take Benjamin in, but I guess they just had a play-day since so many were absent.

Mini-snowman was feeling a bit dizzy from all the snow.
Frédéric helped the boys make a daddy-sized snowman, which Benjamin said was the grandad snowman. Benjamin was not best pleased when Frédéric made the snowman have a smiling face, because "the grandad snowman is mean."

He even got a traditional carrot nose since we neglected to ever finish harvesting our carrots before our trip.
Mini-snowman found a spiky-haired friend.
But then mini-snowman's friend got tired and decided to take a nap.
It might amaze many of you to see how little snow it takes to paralyze a country that isn't prepared for it. In St Louis, they'd have been out salting the roads the night before, and snowplows would start their rounds practically as soon as the snow started falling. Here in our area, they get snow like this (two or three inches) once or twice a year, which I guess they don't think is often enough to justify the expense of salt trucks or snowplows.

Our municipal employee is very efficient about getting our village plowed out, though!

The boys and I put up our Christmas tree Friday afternoon and decorated the mantel. We are ready for Christmas now!