Oui, on peut! Ja, we kunnen!

Yes, we can. Since the raging Belgian political crisis (no government for 230 days and counting) may be sliding by under your radar, I call your attention to an article on the crisis and what some Belgians are doing to protest the failure of their elected officials to actually…well, do what they were elected to do: govern. I appeal to all the leftover campus radicals and the never-had-a-chance-to-be-a campus radicals to join the protest and grow a beard for Belgium. It may not make much of a difference to the politicians who refuse to step up to the plate, but at least you can sleep the extra few minutes you would otherwise spend shaving every morning.

Winter Wonderland

Hooray! We finally got some snow. We've had a series of teasers over the last several weeks, with minimal snow and some ice. Yesterday morning we awoke to a couple inches of snow and slogged our way into work on unplowed roads. Then it rained throughout most of the day, with the rain turning suddenly to snow around 4:00, and boy, did it come down! We hunkered down in the house with a fire to enjoy it.

Views of the backyard, which is far prettier than the front yard these days - although the Porta-Pot has a lovely mantle of snow draped elegantly over its rounded roof.

Take that, old man!

My father is so proud of the port-a-pot they had across the street from their new house for a couple of weeks. But they never had one in their front yard like we do. At least it's out there during a cold spell. Imagine if we hadn't dawdled about getting the new porch under construction. So we see, once again, that procrastination pays.

Christmas Minus One

Better late than never - and since we heard in church this morning that the feast of Jesus' baptism marks the end of the Christmas season for Catholics, this one is gonna just squeak in under the not-to-late-to-post-about-Christmas rule.

Christmas 2010 was the first year we have celebrated without our intact nuclear family. Even though Rachel moved out long ago, she's always been with us or we with her for Christmas, whether in Columbia or Hautrage or Rochester. This year was different, with Rachel and Stephan staying in Rochester, and Becky and Sarah didn't like it. They decided that, since our family order is now immutably different, we also needed new traditions. So instead of waiting at the top of the stairs for the parental go-ahead to check out what Santa left, they came downstairs on their own. Instead of the ritual "open presents, pause for breakfast and to make monkey bread, and then open some more gifts," and in view of the smaller, more adult Christmases we'll now be having, they opted for opening all the gifts before preparing a big Christmas brunch - with no monkey bread. (We saved that for Repeat Christmas a couple days later with Rachel and Steve in Rochester.) It was a little sad for all of us to realize that life changes as the girls grow up and establish their own families. It made me think about how our parents must have felt the first time we didn't "go home" for Christmas because we'd realized it was time to start our own family traditions.

Life changes, but if we're lucky, it goes on. We hope that, as our girls move on to new phases of their lives, we will have the opportunity to share in the rituals and traditions they and their families establish.

And we wish all of you a happy and blessed 2011.

It's Not All Bad

Although I absolutely love Christmas in Europe, I willingly admit that there are some advantages to being here in the States for the season. For one thing, stores are open when working people can shop. Maybe the biggest advantage I've noticed, though, is that I have choices. I went to Target to buy Christmas cards and felt like a kid in a candy shop. I ended up buying far more than we need, simply because there were so many to choose from. I also marveled at the selection of wrapping paper, bags, bows, ribbons, tags, and tissue - all of which were in limited supply and of limited selection at our PX (and way too expensive on the economy). So while I'm missing the German Christmas markets, at least I have Target!

Le Coin belge

Several weeks ago I mentioned I was getting ready to paint the kitchen, hoping that lightening the color (it was a medium blue) would brighten the eat-in part. While it's still dark in my corner (I sit at the end of the table by the window), I'm pleased nonetheless with the result. For the first time ever, I managed to keep my wall-meets-ceiling lines straight. I realized some time later that the tape worked so well because I was taping a flat ceiling. The ceilings in most of the rest of the house are textured, so the tape doesn't adhere well. Be that as it may, here's what we have:

Our new beer glass cabinet features most of our Belgian and German beer glasses, plus a few particularly pretty Polish pottery pieces. The picture above the cabinet is one of the canal near our house in Belgium. On the other wall you see are my speculoos molds. These wooden molds are still used all over Belgium to make delicious cookies. I haven't had much luck with my much smaller mold - at least with getting a distinctive design on my cookies - but the cookies themselves were pretty good.

Along with the beer glasses and the speculoos molds you also see a Belgian lace curtain on the lower half of the window. This is a very common effect in Belgium and in many other parts of Europe.

I've dubbed this part of the kitchen "le coin belge" - the Belgian corner. It helps with the nostalgia for the good ole days in Belgium.

Worth checking out

One of our semi-adopted daughters is in France now. She has the gig as a high school English language assistant that I had 33 years ago. She's even in the same general area. She's blogging her experiences, and we've added a link to her site, Étang. If you like good writing, you might want to check it out.