Christmas 2008 = food + grandparents + new toys

I don't remember well my past Christmas holidays. I remember it gets cold, it's snowing, and bus drivers curse. But this time I was already two and a half, and it was exactly the magical experience they say it is! First, everyone gets very tender and gentle and we hug all the time and give each other kisses all the time. Our neighbor says it's because we all get to feel God's grace on us. Daddy says that it's because when it's getting cold, you need someone's body to make you warm. I sense there is a dirty hidden thought here, like with most of what daddy says. But in general he is right - when mommy kisses Kiki for a while, Kiki gets all warm and happy.

Daddy also gets all emotional and wants to hug us and hold us all the time. I don't object - this usually has nice practical implications. Like, he reads to us, or gives us a chocolate, or tickles me until I laugh my lungs out. He also likes to hold us both simultaneously, and he is good at it. Mind you - this doesn't mean that he is fat, just that we are still relatively little.

Then, it really starts snowing, and the Germans get going. Daddy says that there were times when the Germans were mostly good at ransacking Rome. (Mental note - visit Rome. If it's easy to ransack, it must be fun). Then they became good at marching in leather boots in all directions while singing songs about where the German borders should lie. Apparently, others showed them (twice) that they were wrong about the borders, and so they became good at yet other things - like roasting sausages, making cars, and building all kinds of Christmas attractions. It's really impressive - they put up gazilions of pavilions (the title of my first novel) in the center, selling all kinds of sweet stuff, like chocolate strawberries and fried almonds, it's great. And of course - they put up a humongous carousel. This year daddy took me for the first time, and it was fantastic!

Then, just before Christmas proper, we took off by car and went to babicka and dedecek in Ostrava. I love Christmases there because there is so much snow! One day we went out in the snow - Kiki refused to and pretended she wanted to sleep - and I got to make this enormous snowman which looked exactly like daddy. And I don't mean "almost exactly" - I mean "exactly". The nose, the belly - everything.


And then - Jezisek came. Jezisek is this very strong person who carries presents for about 1 billion children and manages to travel the globe within 24 hours in order to deliver them all at the same time. Daddy estimates that this means the man is routinely carrying around 1 million tons of toys and making more than 1000 deliveries per second. According to daddy, this violates at least half a dozen laws of physics, and if they ever catch him, they will give him the Nobel prize. But apparently, nobody has caught even a glimpse of him so far. Only once in Mozambique the police was there one minute after he left, and the only sign that he had been there were the gnawed bones from the freshly consumed chicken.

Anyway - I got a lot of toys! And I got a lot of time to play with them, and everyone was head over heels to read to me! How can you not love Christmas?