“U to vrijeme godišta,” a Croatian carol
Month: December 2015
First Day 2015
First day out of the gate and we get phenomenal amounts of things accomplished. Well, phenomenal by some standards. Cleaning, shopping, cleaning, rooting around in the crawl space, cleaning, playing with the heating system (what’s a winter without it going crazy at least once?), cleaning, playing with the kids, cleaning, and going to the library.

As part of the playing element of the day, we experimented with the walkie-talkies we got before going camping last year. The Boy loves the idea of them, but can’t seem to get the concept of pressing the button to talk and releasing to listen. That meant a lot of frustration, both on his part and the Girl’s.

Fortunately for both of them, something else quickly grabbed their attention and the arguments they have — which, in some ways, are increasing in frequency — were averted.

In the evening, a family movie — the Polish version of Polar Express — and a fire in our newly-fixed fireplace.
“Should we go to nine o’clock Mass tomorrow, or maybe wait until eleven?” K asked before heading up to bed, just about to fall asleep. It’s winter break: the answer was obvious.
Carol: Πόψι Χριστός γεννήθηκε
A Greek Christmas carol, "Popsi Christos gennithik" transliterated
Hark!
Carol: Бог предвічний народився
A Ukrainian carol, “Boh predvičnyj narodilsja” (“God Eternal is Born”)
Nine
A day of double goodness. First, the Girl turned nine. It happened when she was arriving at school -- 8:05 to be precise. I wished her an official happy birthday when I got back from work in the afternoon. In the meantime, she had cupcakes at school and got to go see E's first concert.
Dinner was her favorite: rosół. Clothes for her Caroline made the perfect birthday gift -- all in all, a good day for her, I think.







Trying out Presents
We have Candyland and Monopoly, Shoots and Ladders (or is it “Shoots ‘n’ Ladders”?) and checkers, Uno and Jenga, as well as a handful of others, but the one classic kids game we did not have Twister. So when one mother said to us as an aside, “We didn’t know what to buy her so we just got a game,” I was hopeful.

Tonight, we tried it out. And quickly discovered that the Boy isn’t quite big enough to make some of the connections.

Carol: Il est né le Divin Enfant
“Il est né le Divin Enfant,” a French carol





