Joyeux Noel tout le monde!! (merry christmas everyone!!)
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Vacance de Noel
There is one big difference between the Christmas here, and the Christmas in America: The amount of eating that goes on!!!! In America, Christmas is allllll about the presents, but here, each person has a couple of presents, but they all get together and eat a looooooot! On Christmas eve, the whole family came to the Fauquenoit's house and started eating around 6 or 6:30. After 4 different meals, a cheese plate, and dessert, we finally called it quits at Midnight!! I thought I would never eat again!!!

But then Christmas came around and after all the presents were opened we headed out at 11 or so for Lunch...and Dinner... and everything inbetween! We had another 4 course meal, a couple of desserts, some cheese and a few cups of coffee before finally waddled home at about 10.

As for Christmas morning: I think I had more presents under the tree than any one else in the house! All together there were 44 presents, and it took about an hour to open all of them. Crystal said "An hour!! It took us an hour!! I never could have imagined!" LOL! The majority of the things for me were little stocking stuffers that mom had sent me, mostly following a Clifford/Navy theme...

That night cliff broke up with me... On Christmas! Can you believe that!? Yup, well this time it is for real. When I told mom, she just said, "Oh well, now you can smash the mug. One less gift you will have to lug home" Thanks mom... always the rational thinker.


On Sunday, the Fauquenoit family took me to Brussels to see the most beautiful square in the world! I think it would have been prettier if I wasn't soooo cold!! We walked around for 3 or 4 hours, looking at the big "Creche" or something like that which is set up in the center of the square to show the Manger scene with Jesus Christ. These are really common here... You see them set up next to the side of the road in almost ever town, weeks even, before Christmas. But only on Christmas day is the little Christ baby set in it. So I got to see the big manger in the center of Brussels with the baby Jesus! Awwww! I also got to see the Mannekin Pis (the famous statues/fountain of a naked little boy peeing. He is said to represent the rebelious side of... something) I also saw the Jannekin Pis (the Mannekin Pis twin sister, who is also peeing, but she was shut off for the winter.) I will go back to Brussels with Adriana on the 12th of January with her host family, if everything goes right.

Well my vacation isn't over yet, its only Monday, and I will be with the Fauquenoit family until January 5th or 6th. So I will write later about my up and coming adventures!! :-)

All the photos I take this vacation are going into my Noel Vacation Photo Album if you care to check that out.

S'il vous plait...