Prettige Feestdagen to All

Can you hear the sleigh bells jingalin' ring ting tingalin' too?  I think I can!  Christmas is almost here!   And things are feeling festive in Eindhoven.  We haven't captured any shots of the decorations downtown yet, but they are everywhere.  It appears that once Sinterklaas celebrations are over, then Christmas decorations go up.  Downtown is all lit up. We did manage to get this pic though when we were walking through the Markt last weekend:

 Yes, my friends, that is what I would like to refer to as the Taj Majal of ice skating rinks.  This baby popped up on the main market square with no warning at all!  You can't tell in the picture, but it was raining like crazy when we took this photo.  However, there were still tons of folks skating around the (very wet) ice.  Maybe we'll have to try this out some night.

We are also getting in the spirit at our house.  The only decorations that we brought with us were our stockings, so of course we hung those by the fireplace:

Oooh, Todd has already stuffed mine.

You can also see the stars and some red and silver ornaments in the back.  We bought a few other things, and the house is looking pretty cheery if I do say so myself.   Our front door is also sporting some Christmas cheer:

Small, but cute.  We weren't sure if there were going to be places to buy Christmas trees here, so we opted to not get one this year.  But, little urban farms of pre-cut trees are cropping up everywhere in the past week, so maybe next year.  

Our only actual Christmas party this year took place last weekend.  It was the holiday party for Todd's work. And boy was it an event!  We estimated that there were around 600 people in attendance.  Here's a snapshot of the dance floor:

We had fun, and it was nice for me to meet a lot of the people that Todd works with all the time.  

This will be our first Christmas ever away from family.  Even when I lived in France, I had traveled back to the States for Christmas.  It will be weird (my mantra: must not dwell on this, must not dwell on this), which makes us even more grateful that our friends Jon and Christina are coming to visit.  They are arriving on Sunday, and we have a packed week planned with them.  Germany (I think I have convinced Todd he can handle another Christmas market - boom!), other cities in the Netherlands, and a 2 night trip to Belgium are all on the docket.  We couldn't be more excited!

So with that, I am signing off for now.  I may post next week, but if I don't you can definitely expect some major recaps in the New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone - I think of you often!