We have been having so much fun enjoying the Christmas season, I haven't had any time to write about it! I will try and go back to hit all the highlights in the order in which they occurred.
Thursday, Dec. 19 Sarah performed in the school's Christmas concert. It was the 1st,2nd and 3rd grade classes, singing to the accompaniment of several musically talented teachers. There was a piano player,a violin player and a glockenspiel player among them. It was absolutely beautiful, especially with the added echo created by the acoustics in the church.
They had spent several school days practicing, and had a final dress rehearsal on Wednesday. Noah's playgroup, along with the three older grades were invited to come watch. Afterwards, Noah told me it was very beautiful. His teacher even commented that he sat there enthralled the entire time. There was a slight incident involving his wiggly bum, the wooden bench in front of him, his head and a loud banging noise. He didn't cry at all, but his teacher said he made a very sad face, and came and sat on her lap for a while.
When Sarah came home from school, she told me that Noah came to hear her sing, and bumped his head. I asked her how she knew he had gotten hurt, and she said, "We heard the bang." Ouch, poor kid.
The night of the concert, we were very glad that two of the kids had already gotten to see the whole program, as the church was packed, and we ended up having to stand up in the very back of the choir seats by the organ. Sophie and Nick were able to wriggle in amongst some other friends, and were able to have a good view of the whole thing. I was able to spot occasional glimpses of Sarah, but mostly, just listened from my seat behind the organ. That worked out for the best, because every time she saw Chris or I she would wave to us very enthusiastically, which was cute, but kind of disrupted the kids around her who were trying to concentrate on singing.
She did a great job, as far as we could tell, and sang along with every song. That is a lot of words to learn for a little kid, but she really does love to sing, so I think she enjoyed it rather than looked on it as work. The only concession the school made for those kids of other religions, was that they didn't have to perform in the final concert in the evening. But they still had to attend all practices and learn all the songs. Their attitude is basically, "We are a Christian country, you wanna live here, you play by our rules. Don't like it, leave." Which is rather refreshing after all the baloney we had to deal with living in the States.
Friday was the kids' last day of school, and it was pretty much one big party. They all ate breakfast at school, played games and finished up their Christmas presents they had made in class for the parents. Sarah and Sophie even brought home beautiful Christmas cards they had made in class, with a message inside from their teachers to us. Chris came home from work a bit early as well, and we all settled down to enjoy two weeks of having every one home for vacation.
Sunday was our church's Christmas program. The choir had practiced really hard as well as several extra people who play musical instruments to give us a program filled with beautiful Christmas carols. The Primary kids also sang one song, with the choir. And even though my kids hadn't made it to any of the extra "required" practices, they still sang along quite nicely. I gave a talk on the life of the Savior before His earthly ministry, and I think it went okay. I rewrote it several times, because it never seemed "Christmasy" enough, but finally, I had to just call it good. My problem is, I tend to stray off into tangents, and I kept having to erase all that and go back to the actual topic!
After the services, there was the usual exchanging of cards, gifts and treats amongst all the ward members. I hadn't had time to make as many different kinds of cookies as I wanted, so there wasn't enough stuff to hand out to everyone I wanted to. But the few treats I did have were packaged up in these way cute Santa boxes that were very fun to make. We got oodles of yummy goodies from people, and are still munching on some, almost a week later. It's hard to say what my favorites were, as they were all delicious. But the ones that made my eyes roll back in head from pure delight were the handmade caramels from Tanya. You are definitely the caramel queen!
That afternoon, we watched "It's a Wonderful Life" with the kids for the first time. Chris and I have been watching it every Christmas for several years now, but it was always at night, after the kids were in bed. We decided this year that they were old enough to appreciate some of its lessons. They had several questions in the beginning when they were showing snippets of George Bailey's life, but seemed to get the gist of it in the end. Nicholas was so touched at the ending, that he couldn't speak for a bit. I, of course, was bawling as usual, and that set me off even more. How nice that our kids can appreciate such a timeless message of love and friendship and selfless service at a relatively young age.
Tuesday, Chris had to go into Zurich to get his allergy shots at the hospital. We decided to all tag along, and went to the Zoological Museum across the street, while he got injected with pollen. The kids all had a really good time, even Alexandra enjoyed herself. We stayed away from the scary Woolly Mammoth skeleton in the back corner, so there were no tears this time, either. We spent the majority of our time checking out all the cool dinosaur fossils that had been found on a mountain right here in Switzerland. They had different stations with headphones where you could listen to stories about the animals, or the researchers who found the fossils. There were also a couple computers with games to test your knowledge of what you had just seen in the displays. That was new since last time, and a big hit.
Then we went downstairs to where the stuffed animals were. Sarah was convinced she was going to be creeped out, and had even started crying before we got down there. But when she actually saw it for herself, she was fine. The polar bear got the most comments from the kids. "Are they really that big?" (It was standing up on its hind legs.) "Look at his big claws!" "Do they eat people?" "Glad we don't live near any of those." There were also many very adorable animals, and we kept changing our minds as to which one was the very cutest. Just as we had returned to our starting point, Chris called and said he was walking back to our car and to come meet him. Perfect timing!
Then we drove downtown and Chris dropped off all of us but Baby, so we could go look at the gigantic, absolutely gorgeous Swarovski Christmas tree in the train station. Every year they set up a tree in a corner of the Christmas Market and decorate it with Swarovski crystals. It is so much fun to see all those gorgeous, glimmering ornaments in one spot. Our favorites were these little red stockings and Santa hats with white, diamond like fur on them. I was so tempted to buy a couple, but then, I had already bought myself a couple of presents, so I resisted the temptation. Next year, however, I may treat myself. We called Chris on the cell and told him we were done, so he finished his circle around the train station and stopped to pick us up. Then we headed home for a late dinner and bed.
I started wrapping
presents that night, but, although I enjoy it, I am not a fast present wrapper by any means. So I didn't get nearly as many finished as I had hoped. But I finally called it quits at midnight, figuring I could do some during Christmas Eve Day. Yeah, that didn't happen. Instead, I broke my own rule, and went shopping on Christmas Eve! (This rule goes back to our very first Christmas together, where Chris went out Christmas Eve afternoon to buy my presents, and I held it against him for several years after that.) I broke it for a very good reason, though. In wrapping presents the night before, I realized there were some holes and discrepancies in the kids' gifts, so I headed out to do what I could to fix that. I wasn't gone long, but when I got back all the normal household chores took up the rest of the day, so I didn't get to wrapping presents like I wanted.
This, combined with a throwing up Noah, caused me to be up until 4:30 am Christmas morning. Yeah, that wasn't great planning on my part. To his credit, Chris stayed up and took care of Noah so I could concentrate on wrapping, but finally succumbed to exhaustion around 2. I crawled into bed at around 3:45, but Noah had one last throw up attack at 4:15, thus I didn't go to sleep until 4:30. At 7, when the kids woke up to see what Santa brought, I was one tired Mama. There was a beautiful dusting of snow on the ground, making it an official White Christmas. We watched it slowly melt away as we unwrapped presents, though. It was just too warm to stay. I managed to stay awake until 10:30, but then I finally crawled back into bed and took a nap until 1.
I hated missing all the fun of watching the kids play with their new toys on Christmas, and have vowed to wrap as I buy next year. There are just too many kids and too many presents to put it off until the last couple of nights anymore. Lesson learned. Dinner/lunch turned out really delicious though, even if it was much later than originally planned, and the kids didn't miss me too much thanks to all their new Wii games from Santa and Grandpa and Grandma Lasko.
The other big presents were the Playmobil Magic Castle for the girls, and the Knight Castle for the boys. We are also taking them to Disneyland Paris again in February. Chris surprised me with a pink Nickelback tshirt, which I love, and I got him some Hitchcock films on DVD. It was a very nice day, and I am happy to report that there was only one small 2 minute episode of greediness in the evening, when Sophie got sad for a bit that she didn't receive everything on her list. But Sarah was quick to point out all the neat stuff she DID get, and that seemed to cheer her up. Plus, I explained her to that wish lists were simply so that Santa and Mama and Papa had several ideas to choose from, but it wasn't a set in stone shopping guide. I haven't heard a word about it since then, so I think she "got" it.