The Three Days of Christmas

Now that Christmas and New Years, plus another half a week, are already past, I figured that it's time to write a little bit about all of the things that are going on here. Hopefully there are still a few people reading this after the ages that it's been since I wrote...

Christmas Eve: This is not one of the above "Three Days of Christmas." Most people here just go to work like normal on Christmas Eve, and then in the evening a lot of families go to church (actually, I think that's basically the only time that anyone ever goes to church here). To be honest I can't actually remember all that far back to Christmas Eve, but I think that we mostly just spent the day at home, nice and relaxed. In the evening we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire until we left for the church at 11:15. Milja's parents, a friend of hers, and all of us crammed into the car and drove to the church. There was a choir singing at the church, and lots of people from the town who all knew each other. The service officially started at midnight and was mostly singing with some talking in between. As hard as I tried (not all that hard), understanding the priest didn't work out very well at all. But the Christmas songs were nice, and reminded me of the Christmas Eve services at home.
When we came out of the church at 1:00, it was snowing. How perfect is that? In this country where it's hardly ever supposed to snow, it was snowing. And huge, perfect, white Christmas snowflakes too.

The next day counts as the First Day of Christmas. The plan had been all along to drive to Peter's families house nearby Eindhoven and celebrate it with them. There was a few inches of snow on the ground when we woke up, and the road was slippery, but Milja decided that she could drive anyway, so at 9:30 we left in the direction of Eindhoven. It took us a good two hours to get there, but I've been missing long rides in the car. You have to get used to it when you live in Spooner, right? Peter's sister's house is huge, and there were tons of people there. When we got there we made the usual round of saying hi to everyone. Here's how it works: whenever you go to a party, family gathering, or actually anything with lots of people, you have to walk around and say hi to everyone individually. Most of the time you also kiss three times. When I first got to the Netherlands, I felt really weird and awkward kissing people I didn't know (and people I did know), but I'm starting to get a little bit more used to it now. It at least doesn't make me blush anymore.
The afternoon there was spent talking to everyone and playing guitar with the other kids. Then in the evening came the food. First, everybody changed into nice clothes. Then we sat at the long table that was set with all different kinds of forks, and glasses, and plates. It took us four hours or so, and we ate a five course meal. The main course was the best, and it was the classic Thanksgiving dinner- only for Christmas. There was a huge, real American sized turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, chestnut sauce, green beans, and everything that we usually eat for Thanskgiving. Then there was dessert which was "cappucino cakes" and after the dessert coffee with little chocolates on the side.
We had already decided ahead of time that we were going to drive back late at night, so after dinner we decided to make it a little bit later and go out with Peter's nieces and nephews. We left the house around 10:30, riding on the back of their bikes. It took a while biking through the snow, the ice, and the darkness, and the entire time I was absolutely terrified. All the girls here do it so elegantly. They sit sideways, and then just sort of jump on to the back of the bike while it's moving. The problem with me is that I'm not elegant, and I definitely can't jump onto the back of a moving bike. Once I finally manage to get on, I have to focus extremely hard on staying on, and on not making the person actually biking have an accident.
Anyway, we made it to the street with all of the bars safely, and after we put our jackets in one of the bars, we went into a different one. Since Milja was going to pick us up at one o'clock, we weren't there very long, but it was fun with the music and the entire Christmas atmosphere. Milja picked us up, and then drove us all the way back to Akersloot while Taiana and I slept in the back seat. I tried to stay awake and ask her occasionally if she was still awake, but I didn't manage it very well. We were home at 3:00 in the morning, and all went exhausted to our beds.

The Second Day of Christmas was another relaxing day for us. But, in the Netherlands most people celebrate two days of Christmas. "Eeerste Kerst Dag" en "Tweede Kerst Dag." So, technically it was still a holiday. We spent the day getting ready for the Third Day of Christmas, which actually we just made up... it's not a Dutch tradition or anything. Milja's whole side of the family was going to come over to eat on the Third Day. Everybody was assigned to some sort of food that they had to bring, so we ended up not having to make very much food. We'd already done the grocery shopping and we couldn't bring the tables in yet since they'd take up the entire house. If I remember right I went for a run, watched TV, and generally did nothing.

The next day, the "Third Day of Christmas," was full of things to do.
The first big project was getting the tables to fit in the living room. Taiana and I had talked Milja into buying a huge Christmas tree (huge for the Netherlands, normal for America), and ever since then Milja had been worried that the table which had to seat 17 people wasn't going to fit. We kept assuring her that it would fit, and in the end it did. But, it did take up the entire living room. We carted one huge table over from the neighbors house, along with all of her chairs (I'm not sure where their family ate that day). Another table came out of the shed, and then some plastic lawn chairs came from Milja's parents. We connected all of them and spread white sheets over the top. Taiana and I were "officially" in charge of decorating the tables, something which it seems like people do pretty seriously here. Milja had bought all sorts of silver things for us to decorate the tables with. There were silver coasters on the table, silver candles, silver balls, silver tress, and silver snowflakes hanging over. The napkins were silver and white, and wrapped in silver ribbon.
At 4:00 all of Milja's family came, plus Anita and her daughter, which with all of us made seventeen. Again we had different courses, but it started with soup and then went on to the main course. We ate cold slices of pork, potatoes, cranberry sauce, applesauce, broccoli, pears, and lots of different vegetable dishes. Desert was creme brulee which was to die for. And then of course there was more dessert with the coffee.
Everyone stayed for a long time, sitting at the table and talking. I think this was about the time when I was supposed to get homesick, but it never really happened. I guess that's what good company does for you... and you can't really be homesick when you feel so welcome in the family you're with.

The Third Day of Christmas was a Monday, and I'm going to skip Monday since there weren't Four Day's of Christmas (we just cleaned). Tuesday is coming soon though! Tuesday I left for Soest with TDR, so there's a lot to say about Tuesday and the days that followed.