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So yeah, the holidays were a bit stressful for us this year. Mostly because of the travel and coordinating gifts.
I’m still jet lagged, so this post will be more photos than text…I’m sure you don’t mind.
Here’s a few Christmas treats we enjoyed while still in Bruxelles:
Oooh, St. Nicolas doesn’t melt when you throw water on him, but put him in some hot pudding…
Wheeeeeee! Chocolat Chip Panetone…Italy and Bruxelles all in one!
We also enjoyed the Christmas fair in Bruxelles, but I’ll share more about that in another post.
Chris and I both had some sort of stomach virus or reaction to food the weekend before we flew. We were still not feeling well while packing and getting to the airport.
Our flight was on USAir from Brussels to Philadelphia, then Phili to Boston. And our house is about an hour drive out of Boston. Here’s a little tidbit from our inflight “meal”:
ewwwwww!
We were greeted by a beautiful New England Snow Storm! Our first morning home we awoke to beautiful trees and fresh blankets of snow.
We were lucky to have a lot of family around this year. Chris’ parents drove up and stayed with us for 5 days (through the 26th). It was the first time we’d seen them in a year. They brought their dog Bobbi with them. She’s always fun to have around. Here she is making herself at home on the kitties window seat.
She really enjoyed the snow!
Even though we weren’t home for very long, my Baboo still got me a tree! I love my baby tree!
We had a lot of fun at the Christmas Eve party for my Dad’s side of the family. It was at my Aunt Sue’s new house. She just built it this fall and it was cool to finally see the house. My cousin Stacey’s girls were there and provided entertainment all night.
CJ’s the boss!
ME in her Christmas PJs
We do a Yankee Swap, everyone contributes a $25 gift card. Then the fun begins.
CJ was “helping” this year by distributing the choices and transferring swaps when necessary.
She was also very interested in what people got. Sometimes she provided a premium “gift opening service” so the gift card was carefully unwrapped for you.
On the way to the party, I explained to Chris’ parents the rules of Yankee Swap.
Everyone gets a number. Then, according to the number you selected, each person chooses a gift. The person with #1 selects a gift first, then opens it. Then the person with #2 selects a gift, opens it, and decides if they want to keep it. If #2 likes the gift that #1 selected better than their own selection, they can swap their selection with #1 (hence the Swap).
This selection of wrapped gift, opening it, and then keeping or swapping continues until everyone has a gift. At that point, the person who went first (#1) gets to select from any of the gifts opened! So #1 is the best number to have (this was stressed to my in laws).
Guess who got #1 at the swap? Chris’ Mom!! This is her swapping her gift card with my cousin Julie (who ended up with the card she brought)!
Ah, to be a kid again and remember the pure excitement of Christmas.
One of the great things about these parties is that I get to see my Grammie Mac.
In my family we traditionally open stockings first thing on Christmas morning. When someone is born or married into the family, they get a stocking. Here are our stockings…
Here is Bobbi modeling one of the items that came in her (and Chris’) Mom’s stocking.
We went to my Dad and his wife’s house for Christmas morning where we exchange gifts and begin a long day of eating. Always have pilsbury cinnamon buns. This year we brought a panetone too.
We traveled to my Mom and her husband’s house for Christmas dinner. She made an amazing Beef Tenderloin. Once again a fantastic meal. Preparing the meal was a team effort this year as she had stayed up until 4AM to finish knitting her husband’s stocking (it’s a new tradition for them)!!
We returned back to our house Christmas evening to exchange gifts with Chris’ parents.
It was a good, although long, day!
It snowed several times while we were home. The yard looked beautiful.
One morning Chris got all excited and wanted to know if I saw the Owl out back. He kept pointing to the trees. I couldn’t see anything…until the Owl moved! So cool. Here’s our Owl.
Even though it was pretty stressful and we didn’t get to see everyone, we still had a lot of fun this Christmas.
I hope everyone enjoyed their Holidays and may 2008 bring you all the good things.
I hope you are all having a festive season so far!
If you were thinking of giving to a charity this season, perhaps you would like to be aware of an online raffle that is taking place. The Menu For Hope is a group of food bloggers that get together and offer prizes for an online raffle. For every $10 you donate, you get an entry for the prize of your choice. Each prize offered has a unique code, so you can select what you’d like your chances to go toward.
The Menu for Hope benefits the UN World Food Program. Chez Pim has a lot of information about this, please take a look at her entries.
There are some amazing prizes. The food bloggers are from all over the world, so there is a vast variety of prizes offered. I am impressed with the level of creativity and generosity. If you are interested, please take a look at the official Menu for Hope post on Chez Pim.
As part of the Menu for Hope, Sara at Ms. Adventures in Italy has offered a great Artigianale Basket of Italian goodies. Please take a look at her post if you’re interested in some very special Italian food selections. Enter prize code EU27 when donating at the Menu for Hope site if you’d like a chance to win this basket of goodies (check out the instructions for donations on Sara or Pim’s blogs).
Fanny at Foodbeam has the list of prizes offered from Europe. There are some really cool experience prizes (like food specific tours of Paris).
So if you’re interested in giving to a great cause and perhaps getting a little prize for doing so, think about making a contribution. I did (keep your fingers crossed for my goat cheese making adventure in France)!
Don’t procrastinate, the Menu for Hope raffle ends December 21st! That’s Friday!!
Today is St. Nicolas day in Belgium (and other countries).
So that’s pretty cool. Kids here get gifts today AND on Christmas.
Makes all of December a fun month.
Which is excellent since the weather has been pretty un-fun. Lately the sun has only come out for 15 minute bursts. Or you can see that the sun is shining somewhere in the distance, but where we are standing…clouds.
Ok, enough about the weather!
Legend has it that St. Nicolas came to the Netherlands from Spain in December.
He brought with him moorish servants (more on that later). In Belgium, Sinterklaas leaves prizes for the children on the night of December 5th. December 6th is St. Nicolas Day.
So the Belgian stores have been gearing up to this day since Halloween. Yes, Halloween. There have been masive displays of St. Nicolas related candy and treats everywhere. Additionally, kids books and toys have been pushed.
This is how I originally found out that St. Nick comes to Belgium on the 5th. I kept seeing a lot of cardinal like figures in chocolate at the stores. But what I was curious about was the little figure dressed in colorful renaissance dress with African features. So I did what any geek does…I googled it. Here’s what I found on Wikipedia.
Here is the candy that made me curious about the figure with Sinterklaas:
