Sunrise

I took this picture as the sun was rising last week. The sky was just beautiful.

Our Christmas

Well, Christmas is over and I have to say that it was enjoyable. I was a little nervous with the prospect of hosting the holiday festivities in our new home since we are still have boxes to unpack, but at the end of the day it just doesn't matter. I mean, it took us about 6 months to pack all of our belongings in order to move here, it should take about 6 months(or more) to unpack. Besides, all of the boxes that need attention are strategically stored upstairs where they aren't visible.

Kosta's mom and sister arrived shortly after 11:00am and we were all dressed and ready for the day. Small miracles do happen. Izabella wore her favorite "princess" dress and Foti sported a nice shirt and vest combo. Alexandra wore an adorable red and white Santa-style dress complete with a faux fur collar. I managed to dig a nice outfit of my own out of one of our remaining boxes.

The turkey was in the oven and the kids were behaving. Although Santa(Aghios Vassilis) doesn't arrive in Greece until New Year's Eve they were giddy with the anticipation of the gifts that they would receive from everyone else, including some gifts from America that they'd been slowly tearing open since Kosta's return. At first I wasn't sure how I'd handle telling Iza that Santa doesn't visit us on Christmas Eve but everything worked out just fine, if not better. I mean, how much better does it get for a kid? They receive presents from their family and friends on Christmas day and then Santa brings even more presents on New Year's Eve!

Our other dinner guests arrived about an hour late because they got lost and because they're men, they didn't bother to call us right away to ask for better directions. Again, everything turned out just fine. Dinner was perfectly ready when they arrived. The kids still got up and ran around a lot during dinner but I didn't bother disciplining them too much, I was tired and well, they're kids. One day they'll learn to sit through a whole dinner, it's just not soon. What's funny is that Foti started to fall asleep during dinner so he left the table to take a nap. I had the monitor in his room so that I could hear him and he kept talking to me through it because he knew that I was listening. He summoned me upstairs to help him into his pajamas. Shortly after that he returned to the dinner table in his pajamas and had a full meal.

As everyone was nearly full our guest that's a doctor got a phone call. He had to leave almost immediately. Bummer. So, I packed the desserts for he and his friend to take home. (cherry cheesecake & lots of cookies)Their visit was just under 2 hours. It worked out in our favor because both Kosta and I were still a little under the weather. We cleaned the table and put more wood in the fire. As soon as the kids were in bed MIL set up for a Christmas cupping. It's been years since she's performed cupping therapy on me and I have to say that it felt really good and I was quite relaxed afterward. Kosta fell asleep almost immediately after his session. It seemed that everyone was full and tired so our night ended early.

The next morning we both felt much better. We had breakfast and cleaned up a little more. MIL spent time in the yard with the kids and SIL just relaxed in front of the TV. Later that afternoon we warmed up our leftovers and had a late lunch. MIL and SIL left at around 6:00pm that evening. That was Christmas for us. I'm really glad that our 1st Christmas in Greece went well. Whew!

Merry Christmas!!

Izabella's Santa picture

Well, it' s been a while since I've posted one of Izabella's drawings so I decided that
there's no better time than Christmas to share another. She' drawn hundreds but this is one of my favorites.
It's Christmas Eve and we're preparing to have a house full tomorrow. I know it's kind of silly to blog when I have to start some more dishes and straighten up the house but I just wanted to pop online to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. It's just like me to do something like that. I think that I work best under pressure.
Tomorrow we're having MIL , SIL , Iza's godfather and another friend here for Christmas dinner. I'm making a multicultural type of feast. We'll have turkey the American way complete with stuffing and mashed potatoes on the side. Puerto Rican rice will be on the table as well as eggplant salad, tzaziki, tigania, green salads and a lot more. I just hope that everything goes well. It's Christmas after all:)

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Turkey Hunt

I found a reasonalbly priced turkey! I can't believe it. I didn't really look for one at Thanksgiving but I've been searching high and low for a good deal for the last week since the birds finally made their seasonal appearance in the local supermarkets. The first turkey that I looked at was about 15 lbs(6.8 kg) and cost 52.50 Euro!!(about $75 USD) I almost died. What if I burned the turkey? It'd be a total waste of a lot of money. The next turkey that I checked out was at a local butcher shop. I asked the butcher if he had any turkeys and if he did how much he wanted for one. Of course he had turkeys, Christmas is in a few days! Anyway, he went into his refrigerator and pulled out a turkey that was about the size of a chicken, maybe 5 lbs (2.27 kg) and said that he wanted 7.00 Euro per kg. I instantly thought that if I wanted a bigger turkey I'd end paying a fortune for it so I scratched the butcher off of my list for a turkey. The thing about the turkeys here though is that they are typically sold fresh, not frozen, so I suppose that's what enables the prices to be so high.

As fresh turkeys are probably wonderful I am perfectly happy with buying a frozen one since that is what I am accustomed to. What fun would it be if I didn't have to start thawing a bird 3 or 4 days before I can cook it? I also figured that if I found a frozen turkey it wouldn't be nearly as expensive as a fresh one. When I finally had another chance to look I checked out another store and finallly found one that is 12 lbs (5.4 kg) and was only 12.99 Euro(Just under $19.00). I can live with that!

Good morning from Greece!

What a welcome surprise! We woke up with snow this morning! Kosta returned from Milwaukee this week where they've had a lot of snow already so we thank him for bringing some along for us. The sun had barely risen before the kids threw on their coats to run outside to play in the new fallen snow. We love it!

I recently received this card from a friend back home. I laughed so hard when I got it. Thanks Bonnie!!