Wednesday, January 2, 2013

On the 12th day of Christmas...


Part of our Christmas village, which, if 2013 is like most years, will probably stay up until March or even beyond

... I will take stock of these 12 glorious days of vacation. 

First, you may be asking yourself why, as a teacher, I have made such a big deal out of having 12 big days off at Christmas. It's true that many teachers get two whole weeks. But my building closes for a minimum of one week at Christmas, and a bit more if the dates work out right.

Also, although teaching is my main activity, I am contractually a regular French employee, subject to "normal" French vacation rules. So no, this gal does not get two weeks off every two months. And honestly, I don't think I'd really want to.

So 12 days represented a truly generous Christmas break. And the fact that we didn't fill it up with a trip means that I got a really good rest. 

Of course, I had many things I wanted to accomplish. I accomplished some of them; others will wait. And I won't bore you with the long list of what got done and what didn't. 

But one accomplishment was getting this blog moving again! My "12 Days of Christmas" theme was like my own personal little NaBloPloMo. Which, by the way, I think I will never do again...


Tuesday, January 1, 2013

On the 11th day of Christmas...



...I quietly recovered from the New Year's Eve party we went to.

We had said we would leave at 1:00 am at the latest; we left at 2:30 am and got to sleep at about 3:00.

It was quite the evening but we were up to it!

In the French tradition, everything was set up very festively, and in the French tradition, we had a royal feast.

There were five couples and each one brought one course, but I still say hats off to our good friends Eric and Véro who hosted the event. They love to entertain and do it so very well.

Today has not been a day for reflection on the year to come...in fact, it hasn't been a day for reflection on much of anything! Just a very lazy day, preparing myself mentally for going back to work on Thursday.

But I do wish all of you a very happy and healthy new year -- with special thanks to those of you who have migrated back to comment a bit on this space.