Getting ready for 8 pound baby Jesus to fill our stockings.

So, you probably noticed a wee little gap in time here. We went to London, came home really sick and I've been all off track ever since. Well before I give up blogging (again) I thought I would get back on the wagon.
We have enough snow here in Switzerland for it to finally feel like Christmas. The temperature here is usually around -1C so we don't get the same snow as you Canucks, but the snow we do get makes our town look like we live in a snow globe.
I have officially become 'The Mom' this year! All the things that I normally enjoy my mother or my mother-in-law doing for me have become my 'thing' this year. Them deciding to stay in Canada and all. For some gals this would be when their homesickness really kicks in, but for me it has been a really great experience (I have actually thought may I have some sort of distachment disorder). It has made me feel like I am the matriarch of my own little family and that we have our own way of doing Christmas now. Rudy and I had to actually sit down this year and talk about what was really important to each of us for the holidays. You know, the things that if they don't happen you feel ripped off. The things that each of our families have as traditions that happen every year, that everyone takes for granted because that's how it is always done. Well this year we are the ones responsible for making those things happen, and for showing our daughter what is important to us, and our families at the holiday season. So far she has had her Santa Claus bag, made a wreath with daddy for advent, made fudge, cookies, and chocolate bark with mommy and tomorrow night she will help us decorate our tree (using the electric lights, not the candles!).
We have blended traditions and boy do our kids ever luck out!! They get Santa Claus bags and stockings, to open one present on Christmas Eve, Turkey Dinner, Rice Casimir, and a big Christmas breakfast with bacon. In the years to come our kids may be the envy of the neighbourhood, not because of the size of their presents but because they get all the cool stuff of 2 cultures.
I'm making a big turkey dinner for all Rudy's friends this year. 16 of them or so. Crazy. I didn't know there would be that many when I suggested that I would like to do that. But it has been a good project for me, I like doing this sort of thing :)
It has also taught me what Canada has that I have to improvise here. Like poultry seasoning. And corn syrup. And chocolate chips (I think it's the only way they don't make chocolate here). Being the pioneer I am I just made my own. Really. And that I had to special order my turkey from the butcher because they aren't the thing people make for Christmas here. That and the cost of my unpopular birds (because there is no way I would fit a 20lb bird in my easy-bake of an oven) will probably be somewhere in the ballpark of $25/kg. Ouch.