Our Merry Christmas

We decided to celebrate Christmas today within our little family. We allowed the kids to open their gifts from each other and from us so that we wouldn't have to haul that stuff back and forth to the States next weekend. We had a great day! We slept late, ate a huge breakfast of pancakes and sausage, opened gifts and then let the kids play all day with their gifts. Josh and I took a long walk this afternoon to enjoy the sunshine and the seaside. It got up to about 40 degrees today but was below freezing all day yesterday and for a few hours this morning. We then ate our traditional Christmas Eve meal of lasagna, salad and pie (that tradition started because lasagna was something I could put in the oven before we went to Mass and have it be ready when we got home). I was able to find all the ingredients to make my usual lasagna recipe, although the ricotta had a wonderful, more fresh texture and the mozzarella is true, fresh mozzarella that comes in a ball. We do see lasagna made and sold around here but the only French recipe that I have seen for lasagna includes bechamel sauce! Yesterday was a cold and gray day... the boys had school in the morning followed by a little parent council open house where they served coffee and muffins and sold homemade jams and jellies to raise money. The kids enjoyed some Christmas caroling as well as a visit from Santa (Pere Noel). After the rounds of basketball, soccer and horseback riding, Quincy had his friend, Hugo, come over to play for the day. They had a great time together and Hugo couldn't eat enough of my chocolate chip cookies! Josh and I finally attended a very casual French evening. We were invited to the birthday party of the husband of an acquaintance of mine. We considered not going because it just takes so much effort to make small talk with people that don't speak the same language and we were not sure how many people that we would actually know.... We decided to go however and had a great time. It was the first very casual get-together that we have seen here. It was a kin to a college party with people drinking out of paper cups (wine however, not beer), eating snacks off of paper plates, loud music, lots of talking and silly prank gifts for the birthday boy. We were pleasantly surprised to see quite a few people that we knew and Josh impressed them all by speaking only French. Another late night on our crazy social circuit!