Christmas Prep



Its hardly the holidays without a gingerbread house.  Last year I attempted to make my own gingerbread and fabricate the pieces of the house myself.  There are no pictures of that house because it fell apart moments after construction.  And it didn't even taste good.  You can imagine Claudia's disappointment and my shame!  =) 



As you can see, I did not make that same mistake twice.  My sweet friend Sandra scored some ready to assemble houses, treats included.  It was easy and Claudia was able to do most of the constructing and decorating on her own this year.  I was excited to see Claudia could do almost everything without my help, but I couldn't help but help her.  After last year's collapsed gingerbread shack, I was excited to contribute to a structurally sound house. 

We girls started what is hopefully a yearly tradition of attending the Nutcracker.  Sweet girl sat through the whole thing, with the help of one bag of marshmallows, one marzipan Santa, two candy canes and one bag of popcorn.  I still can't believe we made it through to the end.  Never doubt the motivational powers of junk food.

During intermission, aka "halftime" (indication that child is watching too much football with Daddy), Claudia performed a solo "nutcrackin'" dance, which closely resembled the "Elaine dance" from Seinfeld. That lady in the bag is doubled over with what I can only assume is excitement.

This was Claudia's first time to the Budapest Opera House.  She spotted about five friends perched in various balconies.  Thank goodness for matinee showings.

Claudia attended a birthday party for her two favorite peeps at RolliPolli, a cool new gymnastics place for kids.  Its like a real gymnastics studio, but everything is tiny.  Tiny beam, tiny uneven bars, tiny rings, tiny vault.   Tiny stuff, big fun.

The Hungarian birthday "candles" will never get old. 

And we had a visitor on December 6 (which was several weeks ago, wow), St. Mikolus!!  He's Hungarian Santa.  Here's CC and Paddy investigating their shoes and goodies.  I think in most European countries, St. Nicolas (or some variation) comes and puts candy, nuts and fruits in the shoes of good children and puts golden twigs (or switches) in the shoes of naughty children.  Most kids get a mix of both, like Claudia.   Also noteworthy, in Hungary, parents tell their kids that baby Jesus brings the Christmas presents.  So if you thought it baffled your children to hear that Santa takes presents all over the world with flying reindeer, just imagine telling them that baby Jesus is doing this now. 

The countdown is on... Merry Christmas!