Getting in the mood for Christmas...

Getting in the mood...slowly but surely :-)

Emma's up cycled Xmas decorations

At the moment Emma's class are looking into ecology and recycling. As part if this unit, they have collected items that can be recycled and used them in art projects. This week part of her homework was making Christmas decorations from recyclable items. Here she is with the upcycled Nespresso capsules and wrapping paper from the flowers we bought earlier this week.

Children make Christmas more magical

This year I am getting so excited about Christmas. I think it's because Emma is starting to understand a little about it and so it makes the gift shopping, wrapping, decorating and baking all the more fun and exciting. (I am soooo relieved that I was super organized this year and had practically all my gifts ordered or bought before my wallet got stolen end of November!!!! Phew!)

Also, I am really pleased with the gifts I have got for Emma. (and mostly everybody else too!) Gosh, just thinking about the smile on her face and imagining her yelp with joy makes Christmas a whole lot better!

As always, we have decorated our Christmas tree - albeit a bit early this year due to lack of activity on a rainy Sunday afternoon. But beautiful as I think it is, it somehow does not seem complete without gifts underneath. (We'll be celebrating Christmas in Geneva again so I sent all our gifts there with Steph who was flying out for a workshop and agreed to play father Christmas with a full suitcase of wrapped presents).

Anyway, I was thinking about all this and the Christmas tree we will be decorating in Geneva when I suddenly realized that the presents would be under the tree for a very short time this year if we wanted Emma to believe in Santa Claus. Mmmm.

I think I would like Emma to believe in the magic of Christmas. And that includes the Santa-Claus-brings-us-presents-while-we-are-asleep-thanks-to-his-helper-elves-and-reindeer-who-magically-pull-the-sleigh-across-the-sky story. Which involves us parents putting the presents under the tree only once Emma is asleep on the 24th so she can wake up to them on the 25th.

How are we going to organize this since we are also due to have a Christmas celebration at Tata Yéyé's new apartment on Christmas Eve during which I am sure everyone will want to give Emma their presents?

I guess we're going to have to have the "family and friends give each other presents" story as well as the "Santa Claus brings presents on his sleigh on Christmas Eve" one.

What do you do with your kids?

in the country of Christmas Markets

On Sunday after a long walk in the vineyards with Em and Balou, we went to our first Christmas Market in Vienna - in fact it was my first ever Christmas Market excluding the one on the Place de la Fusterie in Geneva and the one in Covent Garden which don't really count, do they?
We chose the Weinachtsmarkt in front of the Schönbrunn Castle, the Austrian Emperors' former summer residence, which is supposedly one of the most "authentic" markets -whatever that means in terms of Christmas shopping!


At the moment, it's dark here as early as 15h30 when it's gray, but yesterday was sunny and we arrived after 16h00 just in time to enjoy the lights.
Loads of people from near and far (bus loads of people from Croatia, Hungary and Italy) enjoying the Christmas spirit, decorations and Glühwein.

Despite breastfeeding, I couldn't resist sharing a cup of apple wine with crème chantilly and vanilla sauce, mmmhhh de-li-cious (I'm sure Emma enjoyed it too). See pic below of the stand

Your first drink will cost you an extra 2 Euros for the mug which you keep throughout evening and take home as a souvenir. People carry their mug from one stand to another re-filling it with anything liquid they fancy. Apparently every year the mug is different.

Maybe after a few years we'll all be drinking Glühwein in front of the fireplace from our own favorite Weinachtsmarkt mug.... a shame this year's mug isn't very Christmassy.