My final post about Christmas, and yes it is March. I am a chronological blogger and have to go in order, and I am just behind in my posts! Hugh said that is a good sign, shows how much we have been doing over the last few months. While most of my posts are about new experiences, this one is about how we tried to bring our typical US Christmas to Belgium. You realize how much you love traditions when you have to work a little harder to recreate them.
The first step was to import a grandparent! Little Mama arrived a mid-December for her last stay in Belgium. She made the most of it and stayed until the end of February.
Now it was time to make cookies. Mom brought some good old Betty Crocker mixes for us. I have yet to see cookie mixes in the store and I am not a from scratch kind of gal.
It has been a few years since I made a gingerbread house. This was my first with the kids. I left my mold at home but we were able to to find a kit in a specialty baking store. The theme here was the more candy the better (Liam's motto). Looking forward to making one next year again!
We were very excited that the International School has a Christmas show. Liam sang "I am a Little Snowman" loud and clear with his class. Brenna and class sang "Little Snowflake".
Christmas Eve had presents from home. Mom was able to bring Grandma and Grandpa's, plus all of our Secret Santas from both sides of the family with her. She had quite a suitcase with her this time!
You can see how excited the kids were before they went to bed that night. We tracked Santa Claus on the Norad to show them that he was headed to Belgium. Santa Claus is not a tradition here, so we had to reassure them that he knew they were in Belgium!
Christmas trees are available, so that was not so difficult. The creativity came with decorating it since we did not bring any decorations with us besides the kids stockings and a few other items. Lots of homemade items on the tree, plus some fun lights for a store in Antwerp.
Two happy little children on Christmas morning!
The last step to making Christmas feel right is to share it with family and friends. Special thanks to Laurie, Craig, Colin and Chloe to opening their home to all of us (even Keegan!). Laurie made us a great dinner, that felt just like we were all back in NJ. Next year that is exactly where we will be and I think we will appreciate all of our traditions just a bit more, and even add in a few new Belgian ones!
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