Chrissy Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 Happy Thanksgiving Day to our US friends. Enjoy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 And a big Happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends from me too! Hope you all have a lovely day with friends and family, and lots of goodies to eat and drink . Sofia and Muggles we don't want to see too much of this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 (edited) Happy Thanksgiving to the people from the US! EDIT: Yesterday we went out for a little while and bought some clothes and books. It was a lot of fun. It was busy in town (with Sinterklaas coming up, lots of people are doing shopping etc), but I'm glad we went. I'm tired from it but I had a lot of fun and it was good to be out. We'd wanted to do this for a while now but we kept being too tired or other things came in between (ie. illness). Edited November 28, 2013 by Athena Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleonora Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 Happy Thanksgiving US friends!!! What is Sinterklaas, Athena? Teach me my first Dutch word, teacher, please. Happy for your shopping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 What is Sinterklaas, Athena? Teach me my first Dutch word, teacher, please. Happy for your shopping.x Sinterklaas is a festival we celebrate in the Netherlands and in Belgium. It's based on a saint St. Nicholas who gave things to the poor, some centuries ago. He's said to live in Madrid. He usually 'arrives' in the Netherlands mid-November, in a steam boat. They film it and show it live on TV, lots of people with children go and watch it. Every year on 5 December (or 6 in Belgium) he brings gifts through the chimney to children (this is called 'pakjesavond'), riding on his white horse. He also has helpers called Pieten. Parents buy their children gifts (and each other) and celebrate it. We don't do gifts for Christmas, we give gifts at Sinterklaas. Christmas for us is just about having a lovely meal with family. My family doesn't give any gifts anymore, since we're all grown up now and the gifts do cost money and effort. For us, my dad leaves the room, on the day we celebrate it, around 5 PM when it's dark, knocks on the front door, comes back in the house. We opened up the door and there's bags with all the wrapped gifts. We take them inside. We celebrated this with my siblings and my parents and with my grandparents too. I believe my greatgrandma celebrated with us once or twice when I was very little. For a long time, we did it so that each of the three of us (me and my siblings) got to pick a gift, one after the other, that we then bring to the person it's for. That way everyone gets a gift now and then (even though the children got more gifts). Near the end, we take out one gift for each person, to have each person have one gift to open near the end. Meanwhile we ate Sinterklaas candy. Sometimes a gift comes with a poem, first written by my parents, later on me and my sister (and much later on my brother) wrote poems as well. I always liked writing the poems. The poem details things about the person and their life the past year. I always enjoyed buying everyone gifts and making the poems (at least one for each person). Traditionally, in the weeks before 5 December, children can put their shoe (one shoe) down (near a chimney if available), and in the morning they'll get a little treat in it or a little gift. We have special Sinterklaas candy, ie. pepernoten, speculaas, schuimpjes. We used to do this when we were children. Sometimes a child can leave a carrot in their shoe, for the horse. Generally when children are a bit older, they are told the truth, that it's the parents doing things (called 'hulp-Sinterklazen'). Sometimes families decides to then give each other 'surprises', in which one person gives one other person a home made thing with a gift inside. The thing has to be connected to the person, ie. I was given at school a home made huge pen, because I liked writing. I'm personally not a big fan of this tradition, because you only get to give a gift to one person, and because I have trouble making things. I particularly don't like the "surprise" part of it, I was once given one that teased me about something and I don't like to be teased. Here's a link to the Dutch wikipedia page with an image of Sinterklaas. Feel free to ask if anything was unclear, I'm happy to help ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaraPepparkaka Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 Chrissy, sounds like you had a lovely time in Belgium. November is almost over. Looks like I'll make it through this year, too.. it's Christmas soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 muggle.....Whole Foods has a sale on wine! Going to check it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissy Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 Chrissy, sounds like you had a lovely time in Belgium. November is almost over. Looks like I'll make it through this year, too.. it's Christmas soon! We really did Sara. Your boys must be looking forward to Christmas, are you planning a busy or quiet time? Or maybe a bit of both? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauraloves Posted November 30, 2013 Share Posted November 30, 2013 I went to Bluewater yesterday, first time I had ever been there as me and boyfriend had to go to Kent to price up a job for him to do next year. We thought we would call in and do some shopping on the way home and I was surprised at how big it is in there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleonora Posted November 30, 2013 Share Posted November 30, 2013 Thank Athena.. our european roots must be strong: we have a simiar fest on the 8th december: Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy) comes and brings presents to children. But the fest goee quiet in the same way as yours.. cool. And I understood a few words of the wikipedia page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muggle not Posted December 1, 2013 Share Posted December 1, 2013 (edited) muggle.....Whole Foods has a sale on wine! Going to check it out. My wine rack holds 72 bottles of wine. It is completely full and there are a couple extra bottles laying on the floor. My wife tells me that if I buy one more bottle of wine that I can look for another place to live. I don't believe there are any forum members that have a spare bedroom for me. On the other hand maybe I can talk my wife into a short shopping trip to Whole Foods and then see if I can find a few nice bottles that she also enjoys. Edited December 1, 2013 by muggle not Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muggle not Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 My wine rack holds 72 bottles of wine. It is completely full and there are a couple extra bottles laying on the floor. My wife tells me that if I buy one more bottle of wine that I can look for another place to live. I don't believe there are any forum members that have a spare bedroom for me. On the other hand maybe I can talk my wife into a short shopping trip to Whole Foods and then see if I can find a few nice bottles that she also enjoys. We were in Whole Foods today. We bought a few groceries including a Rib Eye Bison steak. I also bought a small container of Root Beer Gelato.....it was absolutely delicious. I also managed to buy 2 bottles of Burgan's Albarino wine......on sale for $13.99 ea. (thanks pontalba). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 (edited) We were in Whole Foods today. We bought a few groceries including a Rib Eye Bison steak. I also bought a small container of Root Beer Gelato.....it was absolutely delicious. I also managed to buy 2 bottles of Burgan's Albarino wine......on sale for $13.99 ea. (thanks pontalba). You are quite welcome, muggle. We bought 6 bottles of an Australian moscato.....Banrock Station. It's light and dry enough for Charles, and sweet enough for me. I love the red ruby ports, but they give me a fierce headache. drat. Edited December 5, 2013 by pontalba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Muggle, I meant to ask you if you receive the newsletter from Whole Foods? They'll send it to you, specifically for your area. Some neat sales and announcements in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 My wine rack holds 72 bottles of wine. It is completely full and there are a couple extra bottles laying on the floor. My wife tells me that if I buy one more bottle of wine that I can look for another place to live. We were in Whole Foods today. ....... I also managed to buy 2 bottles of Burgan's Albarino wine......on sale for $13.99 ea. (thanks pontalba). You don't think you're dicing with death here Muggles???? (and no, don't you try to blame Pontalba!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 You don't think you're dicing with death here Muggles???? (and no, don't you try to blame Pontalba!!) Well. I did inform him of the lovely sale....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaraPepparkaka Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 We really did Sara. Your boys must be looking forward to Christmas, are you planning a busy or quiet time? Or maybe a bit of both? Quiet time, I hope. We'll be at our summer cottage, if it's at all possible- we have heating, but if there's too much snow then the roads aren't cleared all the way to the cottage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts