Christmas and The New Year(just found this didn't publish last year!)

We had a lovely first Christmas in Belgium. We celebrated on Christmas Eve with a big pork dinner with lots of trimmings and then went to mass at 16:30. Danny did the readings, our family led the singing and I was a Eucharistic Minister.  What a blessing to get to be so involved in the mass! Afterward we came home and had a delicious dessert and opened a gift....what a surprise...new pajamas for all!

Christmas morning was a lovely family time with coffee, overnight baked French toast and melon, lots of gifts and laughter (the bad German!). In the afternoon I invited some friends that were also in Waterloo for the holiday to stop by for a drink and some gingerbread cake. Of course I went a bit overboard and had loads of cookies, oatmeal cranberry bars, chocolates, cheeses and sausages from the Christmas market, dips and pates, you name it--our table was groaning! The Foster came by first and were with us for an hour, allowing us a chance to get to know their older son Mike who is a college senior in the U.S., in Iowa. Then the doorbell started ringing and we had French and American friends filling the house! You know me, this is just what I love, and I was so happy to share our Christmas joy with others. On the 26th we ran and hung out, cooked a bit, played UNO, all the happy day after Christmas things. The 27th, Bright and Early, we were all at Zaventum airport to pick up Samantha Stewart. The funny thing is that that exact time, exactly one year ago to the day, our family landed in Belgium. As we watched people coming through the customs doorway we imagined how we must have looked