Deck the halls with boots of lollies! On this wonderful 6th of December, children (and adults) awake to find the shoe they left out their door overnight full of goodies from Nikolaus. Similar to perhaps how a stocking overhanging a fireplace might be filled, in Germany—where my family and I celebrate Christmas—this happens earlier in the month.
Traditions… then and now One of my favorite traditions has been trimming the tree. *laugh* Okay, yes, it’s a pain getting the tree down from the attic, setting it, and so on. When the kids were young, I’d haul it down a day or so after Thanksgiving. They were off for Thanksgiving break and that Saturday we’d get started on the tree. That was *always* the first thing done. And man, I had boxes of ornaments. Ornaments from the very old, the very expensive… to things made by the kids in school. Our tradition was the kids helped me dress the tree—it was naked when it came from the attic, so it was up to us to dress it. That’s …
I’d like to thank Andrew not simply for inviting me to be part of his holiday blogging extravaganza, but mostly for reminding me of one of my most significant holidays ever. It was Thanksgiving, 2002. I spent it with my husband, three-year-old daughter and mother-in-law in Hong Kong, where we went for a week before traveling on to mainland China to adopt our younger daughter. 2002 was actually my second holiday season in Hong Kong, and my husband and his mother had been there before, when his brother was living and working there. He and his girlfriend actually lived on an island about an hour outside of Hong Kong by ferry, called Cheung Chau (you can see it from Lantau …
They say Christmas is for kids – of course that ignores the religious implication, but few would deny that Christmas is made for kids. The qualifier should be – kids 3 and older. Clearly the first Christmas with ‘lil q she had no idea what was going on around her. I, on the other hand, totally understood the significance. I was fortunate enough to be able to take 16 weeks of paid leave under the family medical act to help raise my new daughter. It was in itself the best holiday gift to be able to spend the time with her. When it was time to do holiday shopping, ‘lil q was just starting to face forward in the baby …