Christmas, Part 1

We celebrated Christmas twice this year. Santa first brought Lucie presents to her home and she opened them in the morning with her great-grandmother who stayed with us for a few days.
We had Greg's sister and his father over for "Christmas dinner," which to keep it simple was take-out couscous.

Decorating the Tree

We put up our tree in early December, but have gotten behind downloading photos from our camera. Lucie really enjoyed decorating the tree.





Oddly enough, French Christmas lights are not in strands, but are one large loop. I don't know why they do this, but it makes the task of untangling the lights even harder. Putting them on is also challenging. It requires lassoing the tree.

Mystery pictures

To celebrate the holidays, we bring you this year's contest (there wasn't one last year and probably won't be one next year either, so enjoy this one). Your task, should you accept it, is to identify who is in the pictures below. As a hint, you should know that all of these persons have been featured before, and that it's mostly one person. To make things more interesting, you can also guess which year the pictures were taken. Let the persons who are on the photos, and who will doubtlessly recognize themselves, please stay out of the contest...






And if you're wondering why this has suddenly appeared on our otherwise dormant blog, here are some hints: long flight, new computer, jetlag, middle of the night, awake.

A few random pictures

Here are a couple of pictures from our trip to Brussels and Antwerp. We went to see friends in Antwerp, and here are two pictures taken of Lucie and their daughter.



Once a week, Lucie goes to 'music' class, at one of the local day care centers. She has a blast, learns to shake maracas and make all sorts of noises, etc...

The Aquarium

Lucie really likes aquariums, and so sometimes we take her to one. There is an old one in Paris, nothing spectacular, but it suits a 2 year old. Lucie loves to reach for the fish...

Look over there!



This 'unicorn fish', as it's called, apparently came to the aquarium 2 years ago as a 2 cm post-larvae. It's now more than 60cm (2 ft) long. Pretty cool.

More from Brussels

At long last, a few more pictures from Brussels. Bertrand, Gabrielle and Lucie on the Grande Place.
Lucie likes to use the ears to steer her horse. Good thing this one's good natured.
At Bertrand's place, Lucie shows off her fashion sense, including the little doll that she likes to attach to all of her outfits.
Betrand, Lucie, Monkey Geoge (as in Curious George but without the R), and a fascinating jack-in-the-box. (Monkey Geoge's full name is Monkey Goege pas Tail. This is to differentiate him from "Pink Monkey Geoge avec Tail.")
On the Thalys on the way back to Paris. Travelling by train is getting easier again, as Lucie actually sits and draws.

Live from Brussels

We're spending the weekend in Brussels with Bertrand and Gabrielle. Here are a couple of pictures, with more to come.

The Chocolate Cake Incident

Lucie really likes chocolate cake...

Monkeys on the bed

Two little monkeys jumping on the bed (Lucie and Julie)
One fell down and broke her head (thankfully not really)


Mamma called the doctor and the doctor said: you need a tattoo!

(we think that Elise, who gave Lucie the tattoo, is trying to tell us something about her salary)
Sometimes, Elise gives Lucie the most random hairdos...
Having finished eating her shrimp, Lucie moves on the the calamari... (we're just glad she's finally learned how to feed herself with a spoon, being slightly behind on this learning curve)

Halloween at the American Library in Paris

We discovered the American Library in Paris on Saturday. Here is Greg on the way there with our little butterfly. Yes, she got lots of smiles on the bus wearing those wings.


They were having a Halloween party for little ones. When we arrived everyone was sitting on the floor and drawing on cut-out pumpkins. Lucie was a little shy at first, but once she was offered candy by a friendly witch, she got more into it.

Next, a witch, scarecrow and rabbit told stories and sang songs.There was a parade around the library, more candy, and at the end everyone watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

The library is right by the Champs des Mars and the Eiffel Tower. So, we went to the park for an hour after the party. Another mom at the park even gave Lucie a balloon which you can see she wedged behind her on the rocking-thing. (Balloons are one of Lucie's favorite things right now, along with umbrellas, clementines, bars of soap, crayons, sacks, hoods - as in the hood on a sweater or the hood on a coat, and baby dolls. Yes, it's a random list, but its what she likes.) It's also between 5 and 6pm in this photo, but sadly, it already looks like it's the middle of the night.

For anyone wondering, Halloween doesn't really exist in France. According to friends, it was introduced in France maybe 8-10 years ago and caught on for a couple years. At one point, store windows were decorated for Halloween and some kids even trick-or-treated, but then there was a backlash against it. One friend explained to me that people see it as an American, not-French holiday and it was introduced here in a very commercialized way, just to sell stuff.

When I talk to French friends its very clear that they don't understand the holiday. One of my co-workers was confused when I told him Lucie was going as a butterfly. He thought you had to wear a "scary" costume. My French friends have never been to a Halloween parade or a Fall festival. They have never bobbed for apples, eaten traditional Halloween foods (carmel apples and candy corn), danced to the Monster Mash in costume, or watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown... and without any of these things, its not hard to understand why they didn't like or get the holiday.