Pre-Christmas

Usually, I'm pretty by the book in terms of Christmas merrymaking before Thanksgiving (meaning I won't dream of doing it), but this year I allowed an exception.  And for a good reason. Our friend Katja hosted a holiday-themed birthday party on Saturday night, and I wasn't going to miss it.  And I really took the plunge by actually singing along (at the top of my lungs) to the Christmas music.

Some highlights of the night...

Christmas portraits taken by the tree:

Our hosts Katja and Maarten.

Sam and Bart - photo credit goes to Bart for the majority of the photos in this post!  Thank you!

You might recognize these 2.

Or maybe you'd choose not to recognize us after this awkward family photo.

Amazing food:

Girl knows how to throw a party.

Then came the singing, first Christmas cats.  I'm glad this came first because it made our singing sound amazing in comparison.

Then it was our turn.  We're really belting it out to All I Want For Christmas Is You.

Loving Diana's expression on the left.

And then the congo line started.  Followed by joining hands and running around the interior of Katja and Maarten's apartment at full speed.

Yes, this happened.

And I may be a dog person, but boy was this little gal a sweetie.

What a great night!  Perfectly festive!

I also forgot to mention that I went to see the Lumineers in concert last week up in Amsterdam. It was held in the Heineken Music Hall, and I went with a group of friends of EY expats and partners.

The concert was quite good. I think Mumford has them beat in terms of putting on a show, but I love their music, so it was great to see them live.  One of the oddities of the concert was that the band stopped playing halfway through their song "Ho Hey" to tell the crowd to put down their phones.  I thought this was a bit extreme, and a lot of people kept doing it anyways, so it really didn't do much good.  I didn't appreciate them ruining one of their best songs!  But I suppose it's their concert and they can whine if they want to.

And now I'd like to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!  Enjoy all of the turkey and time with family.  Being far away certainly makes me realize how fortunate I am to be blessed with such an amazing family.  I'm looking forward to being together again next year :).

I'll be back next week with the details of our two Thanksgiving feasts!