Holidays at home...

I'm sorry that I haven't been writing for so long, I'd like to say that it is because I have been so busy, but really I haven't been all that busy.

Over Christmas and New Years, Seyfi was off, so we had that opportunity to do some traveling. However, between all the snow, and how ill all of us got, we didn't get too far at all.

One thing that we did to was visit all of our neighbours at Christmas. This was a real highlight for us. It was very nice to be able to go to everyone and visit, and get to know the lovely people who live around us. What was even nicer was when they came to visit us as well. We had decided to live in a little community like this so that we could meet the people around us, to learn about Belgium from Belgians, and it seems that we are on the road to doing this.

We were also invited to our landlord's home to celebrate the Epiphany, or Three Kings on the sixth of January. We sat with them and ate Frangipane (an almond pie) and drank Champagne (with a blackberry syrup for the ladies). One of the fun things about the night was that there was a statue of the king hidden in the pie, and while we were eating, who ever found the statue was the king of the night. Guess who was the king- my lucky husband! He spent the rest of the evening wearing a crown!

I guess that we did have a quiet holiday, but I wouldn't have changed it for the world. We could have gone anywhere, but by staying home, we learned so much more about the country we are living in, and the people who live here.

Christmas lights

For the past eight years, while I had been in Turkey, I could feel the holiday season approaching as the shopping centres got themselves all dressed up for Yılbaşı (which is actually to celebrate New Years). Everything gets so beautiful and festive, but outside of shopping centres, you don't tend to see a lot of decoration on people's homes.

In our littlw town here in Belgium, there are some lights out, lots of Santas falling from windows and dioramas set up in windows, it really is quite nice. So, we went for a walk around our neighbourhood to look at them all. It was cold, but lovely.

Then, I heard that there was a little town near us where everybody lights up their house for the holiday season. We got very excited, we bundles up Alara, got into the car and drove to Neufmasion for their holiday lights.

It was beautiful. Alara loved them, and it was really nice to see houses all lite up like that again. If you live in this area of Belgium, I recommend taking the drive out there.

It is really nice to be able to see the build up to Christmas this year in a new country. To be honest, I haven't really been in any shopping centres, or markets, but just seeing how our neighbours here celebrate Christmas is very nice, and something we will hold onto forever.