It was inevitable

First you mix one 2nd grade teacher with 20 kids and you always see a lot of colds and flu.  Then send the teacher home to her family and you have three more people sick.  Then the two grand-kids spend all day with us grandparents and you get a whole family feeling poorly.  We are now into the second week of this and everyone is getting worn out.  It will certainly pass, but it is sure tiring in the mean time.

We had a good Thanksgiving and only had to keep one eye on Halley during the meal preparations, as she showed a lot of interest in the turkey.

As before, most of our time is spent trying to keep Victoria and Nico busy.  I have found that Victoria actually enjoys grocery shopping, so we have made two trips so far.  It is a great way to get her out of the house in inclement weather and the fact that she gets a free cookie from Publix certainly does not hurt.

 A lot of time has been devoted to getting ready for the Christmas holiday.  It looks like we will have all our children and grandchildren with us for the holiday.  This will certainly be a new record.  It will also be our second year in a house after six years being in the motorhome. Like most everyone else, we have certain traditions we follow. For many years we have had a nautical theme Christmas tree, where everyone who is around, gets to take part in the trimming.   When I was growing up, I lived on a farm with my parents, siblings and grandparents.  At my grandparents house, us mere children were never allowed to touch their Christmas tree.  To say they were fussy about the tree was a huge understatement.  Our role was to stand well back and stare with wonder at the finished product.  As a result, we have always let our kids help trim the tree and the truly awful bits were redone after they went to bed.  So now Victoria has had her chance to help.

Our Christmas decorations like all our furnishings reflect a life of constant moving, a blending of American and Dutch culture and our interests in life. We have been in any number of beautifully decorated homes that give no clue to what the occupants are really like.  The careful observer will learn a lot about us just my looking around.

Of course, no warm up to the holiday would be complete without some exposure to the great man himself for the little ones.  Santa actually made a trip around our daughters neighborhood in  a fire truck with escorts.   Then our first ever visit to a surf Santa.