Christmas Parties

Ok so I lied and this post is not about Montreux, but some of the Christmas parties (because the parties happened before Montreux and the order of pics in iphoto is how I remember what came when).

First off was the work Christmas party, significant because it was Sam's first Santa encounter of the year. The party was held at the Ambassador's pad - nice digs. I was 30-31 weeks pregnant, and my colleague here was 5-6 weeks ahead of me. She has since had a baby girl. I'm still waiting and growing but more on that later.

Go big or go home - me at 31 weeks pregnant

The party was great. Lots of kids, kiddy room downstairs, lots of GREAT food (mini tourtieres anyone?) thanks to the Ambassadors stellar chef. Mmmm. We sang carols (I was so in my element) and had a visit from Santa. At one point, we couldn't find Sam. Someone found him upstairs, checking out the Ambassador's bedrooms. Another time Aaron found him downstairs in the kiddy room, curled up on the couch all alone watching The Grinch at 90 decibels.

Singing carols - second only to karaoke

Best of all, Santa paid a visit. We started prepping Sam for Santa a few days before, explaining what he did (down the chimney, the reindeer, the cookies). We figured we could use it to demand 'good' behaviour (maybe next year it will go better...it elicited mostly blank stares this year). Sam got it... kinda -- he explained that when Santa came down the chimney he was going to "hit him with my sword". Kid's no wimp.

Anyway, with regards the party, we told him Santa would be coming and that Santa would probably call his name and ask him to go sit on his lap. Sam wasn't too keen on this idea, and based on his reaction to some Santa emails and videos, wasn't exactly sure what he thought of this guy with the red suit and the beard. So, no, Sam wasn't going to sit on his lap.

Newsflash: Santa has been spotted in the neighborhood

Anyway, I guess Sam didn't realize that going to see Santa would mean getting a gift, and when he saw the other kids getting gifts, when his name was called, he bravely went up by himself, handed Santa a drawing he had made earlier that night, and got his present. While he clearly wasn't enjoying himself (see pic below), and didn't actually sit on his lap, he was willing to risk the scary dude for a gift. Anyway, I was very proud of him.

Sam braves Santa for a gift

The next night, Aaron and I hosted a kiddy gingerbread house party, inviting some of our work colleagues with young kids to the house for food, gingerbread houses and Christmas movies (Rudolph!). I went to town decorating the house, not just for the party but also to help stave off the blues what with us spending Christmas so far from all of you. We got our tree at Ikea for only 10CHF. Christmas trees are very midget-y here and very expensive, so we thought we found a deal until it died 5 days later. I also went a wee tad overboard with the lights, going through 7 strings of varying sizes and shades. Looks like an evil elf vomited lights all over the thing. Think we will invest in an already-lit fake tree sometime soon.

Our cozy Christmas living room

Mushrooms on the mantle (and in the tree) - It's a Swiss thing, or a 2011 thing...not sure which.

But back to the party. Having never made a gingerbread house before, I naively thought I would bake and assemble all houses. Happily, I ended up buying kits at Ikea but still, the assembling took much more time than I thought (over several nights) and I had to make my own icing-glue. Also, it turned out that the kits didn't come with candy, and there is a definite dearth of Christmas themed candy (think red, green and white jelly beans and jube jubes, peppermint swirls etc.) here in Geneva. They just eat chocolate. So we had to make due with regular smarties, chewy candies and cake decorations. The kids didn't seem to mind though.

The gang hard at work

The results: beautiful original gingerbread houses

Sam's house

And the best part (apart from having left-over candy to eat): the house smelled like gingerbread for a couple of weeks.