Today Max, our oldest, had yet another free day from school due to a teacher study day. I'm wondering what those teachers are studying, as today makes the 8th such free day since school started this year. The weather is typically Dutch, which meant inventing something fun to do inside that all three kids could enjoy. So I took them to a huge home & garden center that had pulled out all the stops for Christmas. They loved it! There were singing reindeer, caroling cats, moving polar bears, clowns climbing ropes (how this related to Christmas is beyond me), Santa on a flying swan (and Santa in many other poses and actions), and enormous snowmen. There were more trees than I could keep count of, with Nicky insisting that Bob the Builder had put up each and every one of them. All the kids were good about not asking for everything we encountered, too! We picked up more food for our feathered friends, who made short work of the peanut wreath and suet we put out a few weeks ago, too. It's been so much fun to watch the birds and their antics. Rowen can say 'vogel' ('bird' in Dutch) very clearly now and likes to look out the window as soon as she wakes to see which birds are in the apple tree.

While the boys treated me to a fashion show this afternoon (dressing themselves up in all the coats/hats/mittens/shoes they could find in the entry hall), I sewed 6 more Santa Sacks for the nursing home. No one has called me back, so I will just stuff them with what seems appropriate to me. They need to be ready for delivery on 5 December, when Sinterklaas leaves gifts for all the good boys & girls. I am also ready to close up my Christmas envelope exchange piece, after adding some more bits of stitching to it here & there. Other than problems fitting on the incredibly long Malaysian address, it looks pretty good.

I've noticed that remarkably fewer people seem to be dropping by and can't help but wonder if I've gotten terribly dull without realizing it. Some of the racier blogs do HNT (half nekkid Thursday) so maybe tomorrow I'll try a new approach to drum up a bit of interest - look out!!

And for all my friends and family in the US, please eat an extra piece of turkey for me tomorrow and remember how much I like gravy. And stuffing. And the leftover turkey sandwich in the evening. Yum. Oh, and don't forget to give each other a big, huge hug from me! Anyone who's out traveling for the holiday, be safe.