Christmas Dinner

Like I said, it was Tobias’ Christmas Dinner tonight at school. Here he is getting ready. What they do is, they walk into town with a lantern (the big blue thing attached to the red/green/yellow stick which contains two batteries and a little light), sing songs by the big Christmas tree in the town square, head back to school and have dinner there. Dinner consists of all kinds of homemade things. Everyone brings something (Tobias brought Christmas cookies) and they share.

As you can see he also made a Christmas “piece” (Kerststukje). He was quite proud of it too. They did not get to light the candle, but is was on display for everyone, including the parents. They had little electric lights the shape of a candle instead :-).

Tobias told us he had a nice time at the dinner!

Christmas Cookies

I had quite an eventful daddy day today… This morning was business as usual, taking Tobias to school and then relaxing with Lorelei. But after we picked Tobias up we had quite some things to do. The intention was to go into town to have some lunch and then ice-skate. Well, we did have some lunch in town, but the ice-skating rink was occupied by school children, so we skipped ahead to making Christmas Cookies for Tobias’ Christmas dinner at school. We had prepared the dough last night, so all we needed to do was to make the cookies. We had quite some dough and quite some cookies. Of course, as with everything, Lorelei had to do exactly what Tobias was doing. She wanted to help so bad… Tobias was a really good sport about it, as you can see in this picture… They did it together :-). We just got back from the dinner a little while ago and all the cookies were gone, so I guess we did a good job…!

Kaarsjesavond

It’s that time of year again… Christmas. About two weeks before Christmas on a Tuesday night it is Kaarsjesavond (Candle-night) in Gouda. That means that they turn off all the (street)lights around the market square and light 5 candles in each window. It is quite an amazing sight, but you have to be there to really appreciate it. I tried to capture it with my camera (DMC-FZ18), but that does not work too well… The city hall is beautiful and most places around the square join in and put 5 candles in each window too. There are Christmas choirs, the Christmas story is read and then, as the grand finale of the evening, the huge Christmas tree is lit.

I have been there a few times with Lisa, my parents, some friends and such, but Tobias had not been there (at least not consciously…). So, I thought it’d be nice to take him there. So, we walked into town and went out to dinner first. We went to an Italian place and much to my amazement Tobias wanted to order a pizza! (he usually only eat spaghetti on such occasions…). And even more amazing: he ate (some of) it too…! We had a nice time hanging out together and talking about school, friends, books, Mario Galaxy 2 and such… I put up the picture of Tobias eating a pizza because:
a: that is not a common thing for him to eat
b: the pictures on the market square in the dark did not turn out so well…

Anyway, after dinner we went outside and joined the crowd. It was not nearly as crowded as I had seen it before, but there was still quite a crowd out there. We stood around being really cold for quite a while, kind of singing, hopping, clapping, anything really, to stay warm. Then the mayor had his speech and he went on about how there were all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of religions there, so, Tobias asked me: “Papa, what is a religion?”. So I answer: “Well, that’s when you believe in something, like God or something.”. So Tobias ponders this for a while and then he says: “Papa, I don’t believe in God…, but I do believe in Christmas.”.

That’s my boy!

New Look

Some great new blog templates came out recently. I thought I'd try something new: the dynamic layout. I particularly like the FlipCard view, but I decided on the Magazine view as a default. I also used this template for Lorelei's blog. Let me know what you think... (for example by posting a comment to this message).

Update: I missed the link to my other blog and the history overview too much, so, I reverted back to a more classic (yet different) layout...

Letter from Sinterklaas (again…)

Tobias got a letter from Sinterklaas, again. The content was not unlike last year’s, but this time he was able to read it himself, impressing both his parents and his Opa and Oma (and Sinterklaas I am sure ). Sinterklaas evening is, obviously, a very exciting time for kids. Tobias was quite excited as well. He was very serious about reading his letter and exhilarated when he opened his presents… Sinterklaas had remembered his wish list very well! His favorite present was probably Mario Galaxy 2 for Wii, but he was also quite excited about Lego Ninjago and Battleship (the game). We celebrated on Saturday so that he could enjoy his presents on Sunday (instead of having a school day the next day). We did play a lot… Nice!

Kruidnootjes…

Sinterklaas has come and gone. Sinterklaas-time is a time of presents, but also of treats. About two weeks ago Tobias came home from school with some of them. They had made kruidnootjes and got the recipe for it to take home. So, about a week ago we did a trial run making them at home, and last Saturday, the day we celebrated Sinterklaas, we made them again. I was the measurer and Tobias the kneader. He did a great job and the Kruidnootjes turned out to be very nice. We’ll have to do that again sometime .

(Kruidnootjes are best described as tiny gingerbread balls, I think….)

Swimming Diploma!

Tobias passed his swimming test and got his Diploma A this past weekend and as you can see he was quite proud of it. Rightfully so, after nearly two years of swimming lessons. And then to think that it is almost two years ago that he was able to keep his head up without floatation devices, and that last year during the summer vacation he did nothing but swim… Of course that was more playing than swimming… I guess he needed a proper technique and stuff. And then there were some things that he needed to be able to do, like swimming underwater a certain distance, swimming with his clothes on and some different strokes. We haven’t been worried about him in the water for way over a year, but now it is official, he has his Diploma A!

Next up: Diploma B, and then I think we’ll call it quits…

Of course we’re proud of our little boy too!

Oh, did I mention that Sinterklaas handed Tobias his Diploma? Well, he did...