St. Nicholas Day

 

Tomorrow is St. Nicholas day. This is a big deal here in Switzerland. St. Nicholas comes and puts nuts, fruit and candy in shoes. He comes with his friend, Schmutzli. Schmutzli is a black man who kidnaps the naughty children and takes them out to the woods. To do what with them, I don't know. Draw your own conclusion.

One of the requirements is that you write a letter to St. Nicholas saying why you are good. We all wrote letters. Sarah's is above. I'll translate for those of you who aren't adept at reading First Grade:

Dear St. Nicholas

I have bin good. Because I have not had any screaming fits. Diig was bad. Because he pulled hair. But he is cute. (Then on the side, in case St. Nicholas doesn't know): Diig is a baby.

Isn't that awesome? I'm not sure where she picked up spelling Diig, when his name is properly spelled Diggas (poor kid, he's doomed, doomed, I tell you). All of it is true, by the way. Sarah was having major melt downs at least twice a week. She got promised a china doll if she could go two weeks without a melt down. She did it in October and hasn't had a melt down since.

I wish we could say the same thing for Daniel's hair pulling. Ouch.

So, our shoes are out on the back porch, with our letters to St. Nicholas in them. Sarah is convinced that St. Nicholas is real, but that Schmutzli is just a story. We told her to clean her room just in case.

Why I haven't been blogging much

 

Because this is what happens when I do.

For Mark

A good friend, Mark Forsyth, was killed in a motorcycle accident last week. The hardest part of being so far away is not being able to personally mourn with those that mourn.

Since I got the news, I've been thinking about the Forsyth family a lot. One "Mark" story comes to mind. Well, it's really a Mark and Liz story.

We were at their house for a party of some sort. (I think it was probably for one of the YSA that we both had the privilege of "parenting.") My Daniel was 4 months old. I was chatting with Liz and some other women and the topic turned to children (of course).

Liz said, "Isn't it so fantastic to see their little faces on their first birthday when they get their first taste of sugar?" At this very moment, Mark was feeding my four month old pumpkin roll cake.

I smile every time I think of that, because I seriously doubt the Forsyth children first tasted sugar on their 1st birthdays. I think they just tasted sugar in front of their mother on their first birthday.

We miss Mark. We love all the Forsyths, and wish we could be there.

(And for the record, I told Mark to stop feeding my baby dessert.)

Luxembourg

We spent 3 days in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. You didn't even know it was a Grand Duchy, did you? Well, you do now. There were castles, of course, and cool tunnels under Luxembourg City, but this post is about sin.

That's right. Sin. This is a picture of one of the vending machines in our hotel. See if you can spot the "interesting items" it offers. Oh, and in case you were worried about corrupting minors, there was a sign on the top that said you had to be 16 to purchase things other than the candy.

If you get all three bad items correctly, then you win a prize! Of course, the prize is the knowledge that you purposely seek out wickedness. Sinner.

 

Did you spot them? I'll help. We have, right next to the "kinder" treats (really), a dirty magazine, c0ndoms, and cigarettes! Awesome, and what a great cover story. "Honey, I meant to get the M&Ms, but I hit the wrong number and got these instead! No use wasting money. Lock the kids in the bathroom!" But, I digress.

So, what if one of these isn't the vice of your choice? (The M&Ms, I mean. Not everyone likes chocolate, but cigarettes--those meet everyone's desires.) Never fear, next to vending machine number 1 was the beer vending machine!

 

If you never have good luck with vending machines, you can still have convenient shopping. In Northern Luxembourg, we ran into a store that definitely would be helpful around Christmas time. It specialized in two types of products:

 

That's right! Alcohol and toys. Hard liquor and puzzles. It had three or four big window displays and everyone one of them showcased both children's items and alcohol. Some of the alcohol was in delightful animal shaped bottles, in case you were torn between indulging your alcoholism and buying your child a present. Go ahead and buy the scotch in the glass duck and then when you've finished, the duck can be a present for Junior.

Why You Should Visit Us

Because you get to see this live.

Sunday Afternoon Nap

 

The most important thing

I bought Root Beer today.

I realize that for most of you, this is the sort of news that makes you yawn. But to us expat types this is something to be shouted from the rooftops. Plus it was only 1.40chf per can. Yippee!

I found it at an Asian Market that I've passed a zillion times and never been in. It's on the tram line we take for Sarah's school, so I'm usually coming or going with other things to do so I don't stop.

Today, however, Sarah started her after school cooking class. The school requires that a parent pick up the child and then deliver the child to the class. This is ridiculous, seeing how school gets out at 3:15 and the class starts at 3:30, but I'm a rule follower, so Daniel and I went, saw Sarah for about 5 minutes, then sent her off the class.

Since it is 45 minutes to home and class was 70 minutes, Daniel and I went for a walk to this Asian market. It's A&W rootbeer, so no caffeine either. I'm thrilled.

In my German class, we started learning about food and how to order in a restaurant. Our teacher has been surprised by how important we think this topic is. The discussion drifted into cupcakes and he didn't know a German word for them, because he's never seen them around, but then he mentioned that he had seen bagels.

Well then. Bagels. None of the students (3 Americans, 1 Argentinian and 1 Japanese) had seen bagels since our planes touched down in der Schweiz. We all wanted to know where he had seen these supposed bagels. (Well, the woman from NYC declared, presumptively, that they would be lousy. Bagel snob.) He couldn't remember, and I bet he saw them in Germany. (He's German. The language schools like to have German teachers because Swiss German creeps in too much with a Swiss teacher.)

We think food is important. Now that I have a source for rootbeer, I may have to buy some $12 ice cream (900 ml!) and make a rootbeer float.