December Part 1

I am finally done with my semester, so I feel I can take the time to sit and write a decent blog post.  We have been so incredibly busy, some by choice, some by design, that I have been totally exhausted!  There have been a couple of nights I've been to bed before 9 and almost always by 10...  This is unheard of, but it has been nice as well to keep busy during the holidays.  They are a difficult time for my family since my husband died 2 1/2 years ago, so keeping busy is a way that Leah and I can keep our minds off the bad things and onto the good things about the holidays.  As an adult, I've realized that the things I loved best about Christmas weren't the things that happened on Christmas morning, but instead were things I loved doing throughout the month of December.  I hope Ine will have happy memories of our holiday season, and someday, so will Leah!

The Christmas holidays are my favorite time with exchange students, because it tends to loom large in terms of cultural significance.  In the US, we celebrate like nobody's business, while in other countries it isn't necessarily as big a commercial deal as it is here.  And when we hosted our Thai student, it was all brand new for her, so that was very exciting.  The holidays also mark the midpoint of the exchange, more or less, and the students do tend to get a little bit or a lot homesick, so it's also a challenge of helping them through and keeping them happy and satisfied, while being understanding and giving them a shoulder to cry on if needed.  I have been given two different perspectives on this from my two children at the moment.  Ine tells me that we are so busy that she hasn't had time to get homesick.  Leah informs me I'm not entertaining enough.

One of the beauties of cross-cultural holidays is that we can learn so much from each other that the host families really get a chance to participate in an exchange.  I can share things that my family does and our students get to share the things they do with their families and we can feel like we have a little Belgian culture in our home.  The first week of December was a great time for us to all share in our traditions.

My parents had a mixed religious marriage, Catholic and High Anglican, but both churches celebrate the four weeks prior to Christmas as Advent.  As an adult, I came to the conclusion I was a Unitarian Universalist, and we don't celebrate Advent in the UU church.  But one of the lovely traditions that our family keeps is to light an advent wreath.  The wreath consists of 4 candles, a new one lit each week.  My parents had the tradition that the youngest (my sister) lit hers the first week, and on up the chain by age.  The first week of Advent, Leah was off enjoying time with her cousins, so Ine was the youngest at my mother's table.  So we decided to let her light the first candle.  Little did we know that Ine had no idea how to light a match, or what to do with it really once it was lit, so she nearly burned her fingers, and had to go through a couple of matches before the candle got lit.  You can see in the picture my mom is demonstrating the correct method for candle holding, while Ine tempts fate and the flame gets ever closer to her hand!  But she did light it and that was really nice to share.

In our home, we got out our Advent candles and wreath, which I hadn't had out since Mike died, and we also went youngest to oldest.  This caused a great deal of heartache for Leah, because she REALLY wants to light that pink candle, but she settled for a purple one instead.  The second week, Ine lit her candle, and this past week, I got to light the pink one (I've waited my entire life to be a grown up and get to light the pink candle--be patient, Leah, you'll be in your own house soon enough and can do what you want!)

We also got Advent calendars, which are not uniquely American--most of the ones we buy are printed in German!  Advent calendars come in many forms, shapes, and sizes.  The most coveted one in my family is one that my mother won at a bazaar once a long time ago.  It is a felt tree on burlap, with 24 Christmas ornaments, and you can either hang them up by following the dates, or by counting down to Christmas.  Leah got a paper calendar with my father on Black Friday, so I decided to let Ine use this beauty of a calendar, and she decided to count down the days until Christmas.  I took this picture yesterday, so you can see, there were 10 days till Christmas.  Leah counts Ine's ornaments every day to make sure she doesn't miss putting up her ornament and she is quite strict with Ine about getting an ornament on that tree first thing every morning.  In fact, she is far more adamant about Ine putting up her ornament than she is about opening the doors on her own calendar.

Then it was time for us to learn something about Christmas in Belgium.  Ine shared the tradition of Sinterklaas a day early on December 5th.  We couldn't do it on the correct day, which is December 6th because there was a swim meet and we couldn't celebrate properly.  If you'd like a detailed description of Sinterklaas, please click here.  However, the idea is that Santa Claus's brother lives in Spain, and every year, he gets on his horse, Slecht Weer Vandaag, grabs his helper Zwarten Piet , and they go visit children in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.  Here is what they look like:

I asked Ine's parents about what I should get for Sinterklaas festivities, and Ine's Dad sent me a picture similar to this.  I was quite shocked--Ine and I had a little chat about who the Zwarten Pieten are in black face and how that would not fly in the United States, it's considered quite racist.  She said that it's starting to become more of an issue in Belgium as well.  The idea behind it is that while Sinterklaas and his horse wait up on the rooftop, Zwarten Piet jumps down the chimney to deliver goodies to children, so he gets quite dirty and this is what he looks like.  I have to confess, though, that when I saw the picture, my jaw just dropped open.

So to celebrate, Ine's parents sent over a package of goodies that I hid from the girls until the proper time. Then Ine took over and told us we had to make pictures to leave for Sinterklaas.

We found some downloadable coloring pages on line (type "Sinterklaas kleurplaat" into Google for some of your own!) and got set up at the table.  As you can ese, Leah is quite excited.  Leah and Ine both made pictures of Sinterklaas and I did one of Zwartzen Piet.The end results were masterpieces.

Sorry this is sideways--blogger won't let me fix it!

Afterwards, Ine instructed Leah to put her shoe on the fireplace with her picture tucked inside.  We also left out sugar for the horse.  Then it was time for bed!

The next morning, lo and behold, Leah was up at the crack of dawn!  "Do you think he came yet, Mommy?" she whispered as she pried my eyelids open before 6am.  I told her she couldn't go downstairs without Ine.  So she waited patiently while Ine got ready for school and I got her ready for school, and then we rolled downstairs to find out if Sinterklaas had made the trip across the ocean.

He did!  Leah got stamps and a puzzle, and Ine got a CD and a bag of cookies.  Both girls also got their initial in chocolate and a Sinterklaas chocolate lollipop.  It was high times in our household!

Leah was particularly entranced with her chocolate L.

One interesting thing I noticed on the bag of cookies was the Food Lion symbol.  Food Lion is a grocery store here in the middle Atlantic and midwest states, primarily.  I asked Ine about it and she said it was similar in Belgium, and she did some research and discovered it's the same company.  In fact, I recently googled Food Lion and it's listed as a Beglian-American company, under Delhaize.  Everything is closer to home than we imagine!

Ine's second swim meet was that same night, so this time we went to her school to cheer her on.  She did similar events to the first swim meet she was in, a relay and two individual events, and she improved her times, which was really great.

It was nice to be there on the home side this time, instead of away, and see her participate in her home pool.  The pool area is smaller, but there was much more seating, and it was quite loud!  Afterwards, I took her to Cheeburger Cheeburger for dinner, but she was overwhelmed by the number of choices she could make to put on her burger.  She said, "I don't like inventing things" and then laughed.  So she got the Ine Burger--her own creation of lettuce and tomato and that was pretty much it!  It was a really lovely day.

The next day, we went over to my friend Amber's mom's house for Thieves Christmas.  I have been invited the last 2 or 3 years, but haven't been able to make it until this year.  The idea is that you take a gift you pay no more than $15 for and anonymously contribute it to the pile.  Then, one by one, you take turns opening a gift, and everyone can steal each other's gifts.  There were also hors d'oeuvres and desserts and lots of fun and laughter.  Ine and I made gift bags--one was a game night in a bag, the other was movie night in a bag.  In return, Ine won a food tray and I won a driving shield.  It was so fun to be there with the family and I always love going out there, as it really reminds me of being home and among all the loved ones I have back in New York.  Thanks for the invite, Patti and Amber!

Then, as if that wasn't enough excitement, the next day I had arranged for Ine and me to go to Riverside Dinner Theater.  We are so lucky to have RDT here in Fredericksburg--they put on AMAZING quality productions all year long.  I sing in the choir at the UU fellowship here in town, and the choir director was in this year's RDT Christmas production, It's a Wonderful Life, which is one of my most favorite Christmas stories ever.  So he offered the choir members a cast discount to anyone who wanted to go, and I took him up on the offer and took Ine, my mom, and her boyfriend Craig.  The production was staged as an old time radio show, and it was absolutely FABULOUS.  I cried so hard at the end, and the whole thing was just brilliantly staged and performed. There was even the opportunity for audience participation while giant "Applause" signs flashed on and off, and we had a wonderful meal--vegetable lasagna, salads, and cheesecake.  I was so happy to go, and so happy to be able to take Ine as well.  She said she loves to go to theater performances and she really enjoyed this one.

I hope to take her to Riverside at least once more before she leaves, and we are in fact hoping to invite all Virginia's AFS students to come to Riverside in the spring.  We'll see how that goes!

Then it was 5 days of relative calm.  We spent a bit of time one evening driving around town looking at Christmas lights, and Ine had a third swim meet last Friday, which Leah and I missed most of because we had Christmas pageant rehearsal.  However, we did manage to come for Ine's first event, as it was her first time swimming the backstroke, and she was the lead in the relay and the first women's race.  So we cheered for her and watched for a bit, but then had to race to our rehearsal.  My sister and her kids came and cheered Ine on and then brought her home.  The meet didn't go as well as the first two because Ine's goggles broke during one event, and she was very upset.  Still, it only cost her 7 seconds off her fastest race time, so I think it was OK!  She felt better once she saw the race results.

This past weekend was absolutely crammed with activity again.  It was hard on Ine because this week she has exams, and Monday in particular she had her government and statistics exam.  She has been struggling with her government class all semester, so she was sweating that test.  Because I know she's been worried about her grade, I got in touch with her teacher and we worked out a deal for her to do some extra work for extra credit.  It will mean us traveling to Philadelphia over Christmas (Darn!  We have to travel again!!!), and her writing a few extra papers about that trip as well as upcoming trips to Williamsburg VA and Boston MA, but I think it will help her put her mind at ease about her grades a bit.  Anyway, she wanted to study this weekend as much as she could, but we were super busy this weekend again.  So I tried to let her off as much as I could from activities!

Saturday, she skipped the pancake breakfast with Santa at Leah's school.  After that, we picked her up and took Leah and my niece to swimming lessons, and then drove up to Northern Virginia to my friends Paul and Kris's Christmas concert and dinner party they throw every year.  Unfortunately, VDOT in its wisdom decided to close down part of I95 and Rte 1 was partially closed due to a Christmas parade, so we were stuck in traffic for over an hour.  We were supposed to be at Paul and Kris's by 1:00, which I knew wouldn't happen, so we finally made it to the church at 2:00 on the dot--enough time to snag seats, run to the bathroom, and sit and watch the concert.  The concert is held each year at Immanuel Bible Church, and this year was probably a bit more overtly evangelical than in years past, but it was a really lovely and quality concert all the same.

Ine with Leah, Skylar the cat, Andrew, and Ronelle

Afterwards, I introduced Ine to everyone--Paul and Kris and their son Andrew who has just graduated from Shenandoah University with a degree in Jazz Studies, and their friend Ronelle and her daughter Alicia and her granddaughter, whose name I have sadly forgotten.  We drove back to the Tompkins house and enjoyed a lovely afternoon with a ham dinner, Andrew played lots of piano music for us, and Leah started a little holiday dance party. 

Here is a news piece that was recently run about Andrew, and his extraordinary talent.

Ine has also made a major cultural adjustment.  In Belgium, there is very limited physical contact, people greet each other with a kiss or two on the cheek.  Conversely, here in the US, we are huggers.  We get in there with friends, strangers, family, whoever, and we hug them.  Ine has always been rather stiff when people have hugged her, and I stopped hugging her after the first time because I could tell it made her uncomfortable.  But my mom always hugs her and at this party and at Thieves Christmas, everyone hugged her, and she has begun to relax and return the hugs.

We got home from the party early enough that Ine could study a bit more before bed.  The next day, Sunday, was also quite busy.  First we had the Christmas pageant at our church.  Leah and I were both performing in it, and I feel it is important for family to support each other, so I told Ine she had to go, which she did.  We performed in a version of A Christmas Carol with UU themes and it was well received.  Leah was a sweet little snowflake with the other young kids.  They were a big hit.

Afterwards, we had about an hour and then we had a cookie decorating party to go to with some of the families from the fellowship.  I thought it was at 1:00, but in fact, it was at noon, so we were more-than-fashionably late.  There was a huge table of cookies for the kids to decorate, and Ine hung out with the adults while the little ones made messes and gobbled them up.  I got a text while we were there that my sister was back down, so we rolled home and Ine studied a while longer before we packed up the two cars and headed down to Woodford VA to the home of another family from the fellowship, who had offered free Christmas trees to anyone who would come and cut them down.  I thought it would be fun for us to go and cut down a tree, as Leah and I had never done it, and they offered my sister and her family a tree as well, so we went down.  When we arrived, Leah's former preschool Sunday school teacher was there, loading up his tree.  I asked him where to find Patrick, who had offered us the tree, and he said he would take us inside to find him.  Once inside, Patrick (who is from England) and his wife, Paula (who is American) offered all of us tea and biscuits.  None of us was going to turn that one down, so we had a delightful afternoon tea.  Then we tromped into the field and Leah and Ine picked out a tree...

Both girls took turns sawing the tree down, and it came down pretty easily (especially for me, since I let everyone else do the work and I observed).  Then Ine got to participate in the time honored tradition of tying the tree to the top of the car and praying the whole way home that it didn't fall off the top of the car.

After we got it home, we gave it a bath, and then brought it in the house.  Eventually my never fail tree stand failed and we had to wire it to the wall.  Ine laughed so hard at all the activity, us coming out from under the tree dripping wet, the tree constantly tipping over, the operation to wire it up...  It was quite something...  Then we had a nice dinner and I sent everyone home so we could get Leah to bed and Ine studying. 

Other holiday fun stuff...  I've been forcefeeding both Ine and me a steady of diet of cheesy holiday romance movies.  We've seen three so far--we need a good break in between.  We started with Holiday Engagement, which was the second best of the three, then Holiday in Handcuffs, which we both thought was totally ridiculous, and last night we watched Twelve Dates of Christmas, which was the best of the 3, but that probably isn't saying much.  Each night while we watch movies, Ine and our cat Cuckoo have a little battle--Ine likes to sit on the couch and Cuckoo seems to think that she owns the couch and doesn't want Ine in her way.  She won't go near Ine, so she has to jump down and back up to get to me, or walk around the room, but the other night, she was victorious in getting to the couch first and making Ine sit on the floor.  It was quite hilarious.

Cuckoo also sneaks around and stalks Ine at night when she's asleep and when Ine's at school, Cuckoo can always be found on Ine's bed, making sure she puts her stamp on it. Ine and I enjoy watching the cats every night, both Cuckoo and Dodo are so ridiculous and put on a show nightly. 

So that's all for the first half of the month.  This weekend will be quieter in that Leah has some parties to go to, but I have nothing special planned for Ine in particular.  We will have a big cookie baking fiesta on Sunday and then it will only be a few days till Christmas is here!  Ine has plans to Skype with her family Christmas morning after we open presents, and then we will spend the day at my sister's house, which should be fun.  I've gotten some great gifts for Ine, and I'm really excited for her and for Leah!  Christmas break will be BUSY!  We will go to Philadelphia one day, we will spend one day wandering through the Smithsonians, I would like to take the girls ice skating and possibly tubing, we are going to go see The Hunger Games again and Annie for the first time, and Ine has swim team the whole time.  So I don't think we'll be very bored!  But as Leah says, I need to work on being more entertaining, so I might have a few other tricks up my sleeve.

See you all again soon!