How Was Your Christmas?

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful time.

We had our own little celebration at home. The Kid "ordered" Christmas dinner - roast chicken and rice. He is lucky, he gets presents twice - for Christmas and for New Year's. He is always waiting for the holidays with great anticipation. Too bad Christmas day and January 1st are normal working days. This year holidays are on the weekends which is an added bonus.

My pre-Christmas week was not what I expected. I was going to go shopping, prepare all kinds of tasty treats, blah-blah-blah. Didn't happen. My work mate's son got really sick, pneumonia and some stomach virus. So she didn't come to work all week. Guess who had to work for two! Eight till seven 3 days in a row and then 2 normal days till five. Non-stop phone calls, customer service, paperwork, nightmare.

Anyway, her kid is fine now, and we're back to normal. But now my husband lost his job. Good thing this year is almost over and I'll drink copious amounts on the 31st just to say "good riddance".

I'm posting 2 outfits just to brighten up this post.

This one is from last Thursday. Turquoise jumper and some pearls to mark the end of the working week.


The jumper has puffy shoulders and small buttons running down the sleeves.


And this is what I wore yesterday. Not as colorful but with stripes. I've had this Zara dress for a couple of years. Wore a trench over it outside and a work shirt indoors.

Close up of my stripey scarf and a coral "stick" necklace.

Here's dreaming about better life :)

Christmas Less Than a Week Away

This year holidays snuck up on me. I've been working a bit more than usual and suddenly realized that I haven't completed my Christmas shopping! Oh horror!

At least we decorated the house (finally). I didn't put up the tree before as I was afraid that someone white and fuzzy could kill it before the official festivities. There he is, pretending to be asleep. Part of the decor.


Because of Snooker the bottom of the tree is pretty bare. Why can't he be as well behaved as the Dog?

My tree-topper, Santa's head. A gift from a dear friend in Canada. Thank you, Val!

Some more special ornaments. The angel.

And Santa with reindeer on a hot-air balloon.

The stairs to the office and the bedroom. I bought this thing (what is it? A garland?) for my Kid's very first Christmas, he was 6 months old. So the garland is 11 years old and still looks good.

As we don't have a fireplace, this is the next best place for Christmas stocking. In the meantime it's stuffed with paper, but it's going to change next weekend.

This house is also gift from Husband's friend in Canada. Thank you, Dave! He made it himself. WeI brought it to Israel and enjoy it every year.

Here is Snooker again. I couldn't help it, he looks so cute. Especially in this setting.

Around this time of year I especially miss Canada. I loved all the Christmas craze, the music at the malls, the mad rush of the Boxing day sales. Oh well, at least I have my own little Christmas in this country.

Christmas Spirit

Every year, when Christmas is near, I get a little bit antsy. You see, I live in a country without Christmas! Officially that is. And when I came here in 1990, Israelis pretended not to celebrate New Year's either. They didn't even call it New Year's Eve. They call it Sylvester - who was a saint and Roman Pope and apparently hated Jews.
I came to Israel from Russia (St.Petersburg) where I lived for 23 years. The New Year's Eve was the best holiday for us. First of all, it was not political. And it was a comeback to childhood, Santa (Grandfather Frost for us), tree, gifts galore on morning, January 1st. School winter holidays (2 weeks). What else... usually hot water pipes burst from the plunging temps around that time... not a good memory, moving on.
First thing I did, after coming to Israel, was go to Bethlehem with some friends on Dec 24th to attend a Catholic mass. Of course, they didn't let us into the church (invitation only or tickets, I don't remember). We had to peek through the bars separating Catholic and Orthodox sections just to see what was going on. I remember seeing the monks in jeans and sneakers under the long robes.
You understand, I couldn't let go of Christmas and New Year's! So next year I asked my friends to get me a tree. And they did. A cypress tree that I decorated with my jewelry and some colorful ribbons. That was in 1991.
Since then a lot of things changed here. Nowadays you can buy trees, lights, decorations and everything else Christmas, and not only in the "Russian" shops. It has become a business here, though not like in Canada where I lived for almost 4 years. But still, it's in the air. And I wanted to share with you my Christmas photos. Contrary to what the date says, I took the pictures in 2007.

Here is my little tree.

They even sell the poinsettia plants! And of course, it's not Christmas without an issue of In Style and some candles.

Apartment has changed a bit since then. The TV got a bit bigger. And I moved the furniture around. But the dog is still as lazy as he was then.

Another shot of the living room.

And another one. Boomer is on the rug now, looking all picturesque.

I am posting photos from 2007 because I'm not sure if the tree survives this year. The main threat - Snooker the snowcat. We'll see what he'll do to the Spirit of Christmas.