And I'm back :)
Before the big snow storm, Daniela, Maike and I met to bake some christmas cookies - German ones, of course! It was fun! We made "Buttergebäck", obviously, and "Kokosmakronen"... oh, and Schoko Crossies as well, when we found chocolate and cornflakes in the cupboard. And then I made some others on my own as well... it's safe to say we had the cookie situation more than covered.




And the cookies turned out to be life savers: Maike got "snowed in" during the winter storm, she survived on the cookies she took home. Good thing we made so many!
On Christmas, Kaela's parents invited James and myself over to their house in Bracebridge (which is a couple of hours up North). But James had to work and Sara and Thorsten were coming over, so Kaela went to her parents' house and James, Sara, Thorsten and I spent Christmas at our place. Thorsten is working on his thesis in Detroit right now. On Christmas Eve, we had spinach lasagna, salad and dessert - and Matthias joined us, too, since he was in Toronto, spending Christmas (at least parts of it) with his girlfriend's family. Oh, did I mention I got us a tree?! A real one! But then we ended up not having a lot of things to decorate it with, so now it is bare, exept for the candy canes James put on... still, I love it! We bought it at a grocery store at 1 a.m. at night, and used Kaela's new car to transport it back to our appartment.
Since James told his mom that I wasn't getting any presents for christmas, his mum got me little tacky things for my stocking for christmas morning (and socks as well!), and Kaela's parents gave me tea.. so I did end up having a few things to open over the holidays. That was really sweet. And James's mom got my the most annoying present ever (everyone else thinks so, I love it, though... and the dog goes crazy for it!): a singing snowman! and, since I just realized I can also post videos on here, I'm going to give it a try and post the snowman!

the tree!!!!

Our table set on Christmas Eve... and the tree in the background :)

Thorsten, Sara, Matthias, Rocco and James.. stuffed with food and content.

Our stockings, left to right: Rocco's, then Sara's and Thorsten's shoes, James' stocking, and mine - isn't it pretty? Exept that I gt a potatoe in it, when everyone else got an orange!! So unfair - I swear I've been a good girl this year! ... hihi...
And here's the snowman video - I hope it works:

And Sara, Thorsten and I went downtown on Boxing Day (dec 26th) - that was an experience! Everything's on sale, so EVERYONE is hitting the stores... Thorsten and I saw a man and his daughter sitting on the floor in a mall, surrounded by shopping bags... I think they were still breathing, but they looked exhausted! And people get in line to get into stores! Crazy North Americans - what can you do.
Okay, that's it for now. Merry Christmas everyone!! And a happy New Year!! You'll hear from me in January '08!!!!