Holiday Celebrations

Well, it is the Holiday Season and we already attended several celebrations. On Thursday Amelia finished her first session of preschool. We had a little gift exchange, which, given the age of the kids, ended in a lot of tears. Amelia took her present, threw it away and yelled " I don't want it, I want my present". I guess at this age the concept of exchange is very difficult. She did not understand why some one got her gift and she got something else.

On Saturday we had the Nikolausfeier at the German Language School. Marlene's class performed a song on stage. You can see the video above . Afterwards Nikolaus rewarded all the children with a little treat and then it was time for coffee and cookies. Marlene was lucky, she won a gingerbread house in the raffle.

Since Jason left on Monday for a month in Egypt his mother was visiting for an extended weekend and the girls got an early Christmas with presents from San Jose. From the grandparents both girls got an American Girls doll. Marlene got Kristen and Amelia got a Bitty Baby (for those of you, who don't know, what an American Girl Doll is, well in short, it is a whole industry. But it started as books about girls in America during different times. The books are great and highly educational and very empowering to girls, so much, that some conservative organizations have been fighting against them, because they teach girls too much freedom and thinking (!). And now there are dolls, clothes, movies etc. Kristen - Marlene's doll - is a Swedish immigrant girl, who came with her parents in the 1850s and settled in Wisconsin.)