I am all ready for it.
The house is cosy, candles are burning.
The wine is chilled.
I've got some delicious food waiting for us.
I almost can't wait ....
Good health and happiness for everybody who happens to read this!
Happy 2008!
May all your wishes come true,
and if they don't ....
may you be blessed with something even better!
Here's to you ...
good health and happiness
lots of presents ...
fingerfood ...
Peppernuts
and lots of giggles ...
Visit the homeblog of Weekly Winners, the one and only Sarcastic Mom!
Find out who else joined this week!
2. I remember decorating the tree with my mom and dad. They kept the decorations in a box up in the attic, and my dad would climb up there to get them. When that box opened, we discovered all those little treasures again, wrapped in very thin craccled paper. We had to take turns to hang them, and be very careful not to break them.
5. When I was a little bit older, we used to celebrate Christmas at my mothers cousin's house.
She always had a huge Christmas tree, way too much food, and awesome presents.
I remember the cartoons on the television, the pope having a speech,
and an anual ski-jumping contest in Aspen or something ...
6. In the seventies it was very fashionable to decorate the tree in very weird colours, electric blue for instance. I did that once too! Awful!
7. When I was seventeen, I remember doing a dance performance in the church at midnight.
We all had white body stockings, and coloured ribbons at our arms.
It was a very modern dance, and the music was a jazzy version of Glory Hallilujah.
8. Years later, in Meetkerke, where my grandparents used to live, there was a very special midnight mass. They had real sheep, even a donkey, all of this in a midieval setting of a very tiny very old church ... I never attended it, and I still feel I missed something extraordinary.
9. At Christmas family parties one of us tends to get very drunk.
Last year it was my father, the year before it was my sister...
even my brother in law once held the toilet pot in a loving embrace once.
10. I plead guilty for last year ... we made gin fizz in a cocktail shaker!
We started to throw the shaker at each other.
Can any of you imagine after a couple of gin fizzes things got slightly out of hand?
We had way too much fun shaking and throwing ...
... and then my sister got the damned thing smack in the middle of her face.
I will not publish the messy pictures my sister took!
11. This year's hot new item was the personalized agenda my sister made for all of us!
It is a wonderful way to enjoy the pictures of previous events, parties and hollidays. It was a gift for my fiftieth birthday, and now everybody either has one or wants one!
12. I've been married to Santa Claus for 26 years now, but sssssssssshhhhhhttttt! Ho ho ho!
There!!!!
It is stunning how very old memories all come back to you while doing this ... Mmm.. Hoopla!
Now, who will I tag? I have to, they told me, so...
And the winners are ....
Alida,
Changpeng
Chando
Eve
Julie
Kelly
Kim
Libby
Maggie
Melissa
Michelle
Smiler
Just a touch ...
very gentle,
very subtle...
A black bird in a white tree...
And some garlands of course,
And this?
I found this over at Momisodes last week, and I thought it would be a nice thing to do for me, since I'm fairly new in this town, and you probably still don't know much about me.
Here it goes, first of all ... the rules :
Link to the people that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blog’s.
Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
I'm not sure I can do the linky tagging business,
but if any of you feel like doing it, just let me know! ...
(In fact, I do know who to tag, but I haven't got the nerve!)
1. I do not read regular or "normal" books.
Instead, I read dictionaries, and I devore cookbooks.
2. I buy way too many magazines. I keep them piled up on my kitchen table.
If the pile gets too big I try to sort them out a little,
but there is usually a surprise or two in there I didn't know I had!
I even buy the same issue twice without even knowing it!
Oooohhh, must be an early stage of Alzheimer, I know!
3. I only learned how to shower properly about four years ago.
Before that I could not stand the water in my face,
and I didn't know how to wash my hair under the shower.
I do now, and it's much quicker!!
4. First thing I do in the morning is have coffee with my cat!
But I guess I've already told you that one! ( Does that one count, or not? hehehehehe!)
5. I have a digital camera growing out my arms, but that's pretty obvious too isn't it?
6. I always leave the kitchen cabinet doors open when I'm cooking.
In my own kitchen or in anybody elses for that matter, the doors are always open.
Tall people, beware if you ever join me in my kitchen while I'm cooking!!!!
7. I wish I was a little bit taller.
Being small has its advantages too though, I can walk underneath the kitchen cabinet doors ... !!
Well, that wasn't too hard, I even saved some other weird things for later!
And I'm tagging anyone who wants to be tagged!
+
+
+
+
+
= 
There is a legend on how Antwerp got it's name, and it goes like this ...
Once upon a time, there was this terrible giant, called Antigoon.
The ships coming to Antwerp had to pay very high taxes,
and if they didn't he would chop off one of their hands.
But one very brave Roman soldier killed the giant.
He cut off the hand of the giant and threw it in the river, the Schelde.
The soldier's name was Brabo and he's the figure on the statue in front of the town hall.
So the first part "ant" means hand, and "werpen" is to throw,
That's why Antwerp means "throw a hand".
There's another saying I have read somewhere:
Early sixties, in the small rural village of my grandparents.
I was about nine years old, and my grandmother and I went to the village to replenish our supplies at the local grocery shop. The shop was next to the church, at the corner of the street.
The lady at the shop was married to the the caretaker of the church.
She had very red lips, and two irregular thin black streaks above her eyes.
Her black hair was put up, very fashionable back then...
but it looked a bit like a crow's nest to me.
Her name was Jeanne.
You could buy just about anything there, shoe polish, salt, pepper, flower, sugar... soap ...
I can still remember the smell of the sunlight soap,
or the brown soap my grandmother used to clean the floor with.
My grandmother ordered a kilo of flour,
and Jeanne scooped it out of a big container into a brown paper bag.
She put it on the scale on the counter to weigh it,
putting the bag on one side and the brass weights on the other.
I remember watching the needle stop exactly in the middle.
While my grandmother and Jeanne exchanged the latest gossips,
I looked at the glass candy jars on the counter.
Or very early in the morning...
