Holiday season 2009

This past holiday season has been pretty wild. It started a week before Christmas when Kiara starred once again.

This time in the school x-mas play. She was surprised to be allowed to play Herod instead of a sheep for once. Aldith and Paula came along. Paula has been there every single school year to support her. We always close off the evening with gingerbread goodies and hot chocolate at my house. The production this year was pretty good compared to other years. I was happy to see it! The following weekend I organized a Christmas lpotluck brunch for the African actors in Kiara's Musical. Together with the other kids parents we hosted an afternoon of food and spontaneous entertainment.It was a wonderful way to start-off the Christmas season. I had gotten my shopping done early which left me with a few free days with Kiara. We headed for Zevenaar to my parents home to join in the celebration preliminaries. By this time Holland was covered by a thick blanket of snow. We managed to visit Tineke on her birthday, and in the evening I met my old friends for Zevenaar in town. But the next day we went shopping in CentrO in Oberhausen, Germany. It is supposed to be the largest mall in Europe. It was really snazzy to say the least! (Oh that's a lovely old-fashioned word) We had to be back home on time because on Christmas Eve Marcus and I had planned to celebrate with the children. I was pleasantly suprised to find out that Marcus had gone way out of his way decorating his home and the table for a nice family meal. He had even bought new plates, which made me all mushy as I had been the one to revive Christmas in his household last year. What a huge


compliment and how lucky I am to have someone as attentive as that! We set about cooking in the afternoon and it was my very first time cooking quail. It was fabulous! Many gifts were to follow and that was just the beginning! The next day we went back to Zevenaar. Practically the whole family was there from my sisters to my nephews and neice, and even the 3rd generation was present. We sat, talked, exchanged beautiful gifts, dined, prayed and sang.

After Christmas day Kiara left to be with her father. I was exhausted and rested for 3 days. Kiara came back on the monday. The next day she went to the movies and spent the night at her friend Martine's. It was nice for her to find the time to do normal things again. The following day we were invited to Serena's home. Serena is one of the other children who plays in the Musical. We had a lovely dinner and Kiara spent the night there. It was cold an icy coming home and I was lucky enough(read sarcasm) to have to stop to change the light bulb in my headlights. I asked someone to help me, but I'm afraid men aren't what they used to be. ;-). My own Marcus fixed the problem the next day. Boy was it freezing cold!

On New Years Eve we were home. I fixed Kiara, Marcus and myself a lovely meat fondue meal, followed by a chocolate fountain. We had invited friends to come around after 0.00 hrs but nobody turned up except Henk and his wife Carla and daughter Kim. I was a little disappointed after all my work, especially since I had a terrible flu coming on. Until now that is the status quo.
On New Years day we went to Marcus' mother. We grilled and all 3 kids were there to celebrate with us. On Saturday we tied up the holidays with a visit to the cinema. Angélique, my sister, treated Kiara, her friend Jermaine and myself to Avatar the movie and dinner. Apart from the flu I have been struck with terrible pains in my groin since monday. Trying to figure out what that is. I don't suppose being this busy has helped.