Blogmas (Day 25) – «Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time!»

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I‘ll be leaving you with a short last post for this wonderful Blogmas night, seeing as it takes up all my strength not to finish Giovanna Fletcher‘s Dream a Little Dream right now!

Today‘s been the first day in months that I didn‘t have to get up at eight and head off to work or uni or my desk. Instead I took it slow, got up at nine and made Christmas cookies in my jammies while my mum fixed her Christmas Day with her boyfriend. Around midday Tobias and I headed over to our dad‘s house, almost missing the train – but then again, what is Christmas without a race through a busy main station, right?

We had pasta for lunch because my wonderful stepmum just knows her picky eaters well, then stuffed ourselves with the Red Velvet Cake I made for my dad‘s birthday a few days back. Opening the presents was as exciting as ever, especially as I didn‘t expect anything! My dad and his wive already got me an (almost) new MacBook and as a (wannabe) writer I couldn‘t have asked for a better gift! However, they still managed to whisk up a book series that I didn‘t know and that‘s right up my street. It‘s called The School for Good and Evil by Soman Ghainani, and part of the reason why I want to finish reading Dream a Little Dream so much is that I can start on this one. Oh, the agony!

Of course nobody had as much fun tearing off paper as my niece did. And finally, when all the excitement of that was gone I kept walking around the richly decorated Christmas tree with her and discovering all the gorgeous little ornaments and baubles with her. It‘ a wonder, really, that she didn‘t knock any of it down!

To finish this grand day off we watched Three Gifts for Cinderella, my all time favourite Christmas movie, and The Rise of the Guardians (am I the only who‘d totally hit Jack Frost?!). Now I‘m sitting on the couch by myself and taking in the Christmas atmosphere. It‘s smelling of gingerbread and sugar cookies and chocolate and blown out candles. It‘s quiet with all the giggles and music having faded away and it‘s peaceful. It‘s me and my books, and I think that looking back on all of my Christmases, it‘s always been that – me and my books having a little Christmas party when everyone else has disappeared into their own beds.

I hope everyone has had an amazing Christmas and I‘m sending out virtual hugs to all of you!

Lots of love from the roots of my heart!
xxx

Don’t forget to wish a Merry Christmas to Anna who has been an amazing Blogging partner this Christmas season! You find her blog over on http://www.tinytrinket.wordpress.com. This will certainly not be our last project together seeing as we booked a trip to London – and how could I ever visit London and not blog about it, right?!

Blogmas (Day 24) – Christmas Eve Celebration

Happy Christmas Eve everyone!

I have just had the loveliest Christmas Dinner with my family. We went to my grandmother‘s house as we do most years because out of all of us she cooks the best. Also, in contrast to my mum and me, she‘s quite well organised. She‘d made a vegetarian lasagna and I brought a butterscotch roulade for dessert. My family loves eating, so dinner was clearly a highlight of the evening. We usually go to church after opening the presents, but this year we took our time singing Christmas carols, my mum read us two stories, then we each took turns opening our presents.

I feel so blessed having been able to spend another Christmas with the people I hold dearest. It‘s such a privilege to be alive and well and happy. I was also given amazing presents, and I realise that that, too, is not something to be taken for granted. To wish for something and to just get it, that‘s a huge wonder in itself and I‘m amazed to have been so lucky all my life. Even when times were not as good as they are now, my parents always gave my brother and me everything they could.

I don‘t care if I get a laser sword next year or if somebody buys me an Around-the-World ticket, all I‘ll ever want is this: my family gathered around the tree and laughing until tears flow.

Tomorrow Tobias and I will be spending Christmas with our dad and our adopted patchwork family which will probably include even more eating. I can‘t wait!

Lots of love from the roots of my heart!
xxx

Blogmas: I’ve Never Seen The Matterhorn!

 The strangest thing for me to understand is that a big part of the world population has never seen snow. Never having seen snow does not just mean never having seen frozen water. It means never having woken up to a winter wonderland, it means never having felt a snowflake dissolve on your skin, it means never having been even hoping for a white Christmas (not that I am this year!). Never having seen snow is very sad. Maybe it’s a bit how I feel about never having seen the Northern Lights. Do people wake up in the morning and squeal with delight because of them? Or is it just, you know, a light in the sky that’s there all year? It’s not as if I care too much, because I’ve never had a life with the Northern Lights in it, but yes, sometimes it makes me a bit sad that they don’t extend to my country.

Yesterday my Honduran host brother arrived in Switzerland, and seeing snow was on the top of his bucket list – after all, what is Switzerland without snow?! So I took him.
Two hours away we found it (he was delighted) and we also found the Matterhorn, a famous Swiss mountain. It’s not that astonishing that we found it, considering that we went to Zermatt with the sole purpose of seeing it – and the snow! And now is my ime to confess: I’ve never consciously seen that mountain before! It’s so gorgeous! It has it’s own chocolate – that’s how beautiful this mountain is! Eating Toblerone will never be the same again.

I’m not a very patriotic person. I have lived in New Zealand where I could see the Milky Way and I have lived in Honduras where I could hardly see the stars at all. And I have lived in Switzerland where you get some stars, but if you’re lucky you always get snow and you have those mountains that can take your breath away if you just look. It makes me glad to be alive!

Wishing you all the best!
Cheers!
xxx

Blogmas: What (not) To Say In A Book Shop

Seeing as yesterday I shared some of my favourite quotes with you, I decided to share some more. This time, though, I‘d like to give a few examples of what people have said to me at work. As some of you may know I work in a book shop, and I love my job. Talking about books all day – it‘s a dream come true! Unless, of course, you have the following encounters…

*Me, pleasantly tearing off a price tag before wrapping the book up.*
Customer: What the heck are you doing?
*I show him the tag.*
Customer: Is this how much it costs in Euros? Why is it so much cheaper in Euros?!
Me: I don‘t know, I don‘t decide those things.
Customer: Well, I have you know that this is a crime!
Me: It sure is.
*I start to pull off another price tag on the other side of the book.*
Customer: What are you doing now?
*Again, I show him the tag.*
Customer: No, no, no, leave that on!
Me: But, sir, you can see the price on this!
Customer: Damn right you can. I want those bastards to know how much I spent on them!
*I leave the tag on and start wrapping the book up.*
Customer: Do you know how much one litre of milk costs?
Me: 1.85 CHFr
Customer: Do you know how much a beer costs?
Me: 4.60 CHFr at the Tramdepot.
Customer: In my day it used to be only 3.00 CHFr! Do you know how much money your father
makes?
Me: …

Customer: What book can you recommend for a thirteen year old that doesn‘t like to read?
Me: “Diary of a Whimpy Kid” is really funny.
Customer: Does it have a deeper moral?
Me: I guess…?
Customer: I‘m going to ask a professional!

Customer: Have you been to Kiel? I met this sweet couple that lives there.
Me: Yes. It‘s very lovely. As is Hamburg.
Customer: I‘ve never been. But I really love Berlin. I go there every year.
Me: Well, Germany is a great country.
Customer: *shudders* Oh no, I don‘t like it at all. The people are just terrible!
Me: Yes, well, I have a lot of family there, so I guess they grew on me.
Customer: See, this would never happen to me, those folks are dreadful!

Customer: *showing me a pink book with hearts and glittery snow flakes on the cover* Do you think a boy would enjoy this, too?
Me: I don‘t see a reason why not, but it does seem to be designed for girls.
Customer: I DON‘T CARE, I WANT HIM TO READ WHATEVER IT IS I‘M GIVING TO HIM!

Customer: I have read almost all of the books you have on crime.
Me: Have you read “The Cuckoo‘s Calling?”
Customer: NO!
Me: *Suggestively* It‘s by the same author that wrote the “Harry Potter” series.
Customer: I HATE “Harry Potter!” Don‘t want to read it, don‘t want to watch it!

There‘s entire books written about what people say in book shops. I‘m pretty sure that some day I‘m starting my own! No place to get insulted like in a good old book store! But seriously, what would I be writing about tonight if it weren‘t for those strange conversations!

Cheers!
xxx

Blogmas: Fourteen Festive Favourites

Christmas season has arrived! It’s finally advent and I’m officially allowed to spread the festive mood! This month I’m launching a new project called THE ADVENT CALENDAR — this means I will post something every day, so make sure you come back. Actually, I haven’t thought this through very thoroughly, so it’ll be just as much a surprise for me as it will be for you!
Since it’s the first day of December and we only have twenty-three more days to go until Christmas Eve, I decided to start this thing off by naming fourteen Festive Favourites. I got the idea from Tom Fletcher, although I slightly altered it.

Number One: Favourite Christmas Tradition
When I was little i used to love decoration the christmas tree, but this year I don’t think we’re even going to get one. I think I’ll have to go with baking. I make amazing christmas cookies!

Number Two: Favourite Christmas Carol
The Little Drummer Boy. The part ”…I played my drum for him… / And then he smiled at me…” makes me cry every time. Even now!

Number Three: Favourite Christmas Food
Cookies! I love that you only get certain cookies at this time of the year, and I basically live off them for weeks!

 Number Four: Favourite Christmas Movie
Three Gifts for Cinderella, the czech movie from 1973. It‘s incredible, I used to really want to be her. She gets all those lovely dresses just by cracking open some nuts – seriously, watch it!
Oh, actually there‘s another one – I really love Love, Actually. Especially the scene with Hugh Grant dancing through 10 Downing Street – I could rewatch this endlessly (and I do!).

Number Five: Favourite Christmas Present
I‘m quite a tough person to give presents to, because the only thing you can buy that makes me genuinly happy are books, and I own about three hundred! Actually, thinking about it, I think the greatest gift I ever got was my teddy bear. I was already ten or eleven when I got it, but even now I can‘t fall asleep without it. It‘s called Uschi and has been travelling everywhere with me. I even wrote a poem about it once!

Number Six: Favourite Christmas Story
By far it has to be The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. Santa Claus can‘t make it and Death takes the job. It‘s hilarious!

Number Seven: Favourite Day in Advent
December fourteenth because it‘s my birthday! I‘m like a child when it comes to birthdays and christmas! I love unwrapping presents and eating chocolate cake and getting a hundred notifications on Facebook…! And because my birthday is so close to Christmas it always feels as if all the lovely lights in the streets are just for me and everybody gets so stressed because they need to find me a good present, even people that I‘ve never spoken to! Christmas, for me, is just a late Birthday party!

Number Eight: Favourite Christmas Song
White is in the Winter Night by Enya. It‘s the song I associate with my dad making pancakes. FYI – he makes the best pancakes in the world!

Number Nine: Favourite Christmas Decoration
I have a thing for weird christmas ball ornaments. Like the rubber duck shaped one I got last year that no one wanted to put on the tree!

Number Ten: Favourite Christmas Accessory
I have a knitted skirt with reindeers embroidered on it that my mum hates. In December I wear it multiple times a week, because the rest of the year I can‘t. Seriously, this is part of the reason why I love christmas so much! Best money spent ever!

Number Eleven: Favourite Christmas Scent
I love the way everything smells when you enter a Christmas market. Fir needles and mold wine and roasted almonds and cinnamon and candle wax… that‘s the smell of Christmas for me!

Number Twelve: Favourite Place To Spend Christmas
I like being at home for christmas. I spent it in New Zealand once, but it‘s just not the same when you‘re walking around in jandals all day. Christmas has to be cold (I was going to say white, but who am I kidding!). Apart from that I don‘t care where I have Christmas precisely. My house or my grandmum‘s house or my dad‘s house – as long as my family is with me and I‘m well fed!

Number Thirteen: Favourite Christmas Quote

First we‘ll make
SNOW ANGELS
for two hours,
then we‘ll go
ICE-SKATING,
then we‘ll eat a
whole roll of
TOLL HOUSE
COOKIE DOUGH
as fast as we can,
and then we‘ll snuggle.
(Buddy the Elf)

Number Fourteen: Favourite Doctor Who Christmas Special
The Christmas Invasion. I love Ten and Rose, and this episode is just so christmassy! Apart maybe from the fact that it snows ashes. But I always melt when he asks her to keep travelling with him. At that point everything outside of Aaaaaaww! is a strangely foreign concept for my brain!

So, there you go! Those are my fourteen favourite things about the Christmas season! It‘s not intended as a tag, but feel free to use those questions to spread the cheer! I hope you all have a wonderful afternoon, and I shall see you tomorrow!

Cheers!
xxx

Destryoying The Ring Of Power

So, that’s how the story really goes!

People Are People

Adored By Him

My favourite song right now 🙂

Breakfast

I’m having breakfast right now!

Source

Union For Children’s Rights

Hahaha! Still oddly accurate when you’re a grown-up!