christmas decoration

Christmas 2021

Hi you all! Long time, no see. I won’t make any excuses about the time, there’s never enough time, but when there is, I seem to be letting it slip from my hands by doing nothing much. November has been cold and I’ve been sitting by the fire, pretty much like my cats used to do. 🙂 I guess it’s not really a waste of time, as long as it’s a sort of therapy- your body and mind tell you that you need to rest and you’d better listen. Especially since I’m still waking up at 5 am and the days are a mist of a never-ending todo-list. Too bad this inactivity usually spills over into my admin work, so that I’m way behind with my VAT again. But that’s a different story.

How have you been? I miss you commenting my entries, but hey, as long as I’m hardly ever in here anymore, I can’t expect you to be. 😉 We’ve been decorating a little, it looks really Christmassy and cosy here. And Madeleine and I made gingerbread twice, with the kind of dough you buy in the stores, since I can’t seem to find the inspiration for any real baking these days. She really enjoyed it, both eating the dough (and the cakes) and fooling around shaping it. 😉 I won’t even mention the mess…

Work is slow, but I don’t mind it that much, as long as I know I have a couple of cases coming up in January. I’m finding it harder and harder to put up with the way interpreters get treated, but I won’t even go there, I feel like a broken record as it is. I should probably do something entirely different, but until the day I figure out what that might be, I’m taking my Bachelor in interpreting, to be on the safe side. Just handed in my exam, I wrote all kinds of personal bullshit and I’m not expecting to pass, but at least I gave it a go.

Otherwise I’m really close to taking my driving test (and hopefully my driver’s license), I’m already planning to lease a car in February or March. Cross your fingers! I can’t bear another day without a car! I know it’s not politically correct to even think that, but the city is not made for getting around by bus with a toddler in pram and between walking Sam, her getting her nap and the short winter days- it gets dark at 3:30!!- we seldom get to do anything else than buy cocoa at the coffeeshop 5 minutes by bus from our home.

Christmas is around the corner and I’m looking forward to a break from it all. We bought very little presents and just gave each other a vintage lounge chair, the type you sit in by the fireplace. For Madeleine I ordered a toy train set, a book (mostly because I’m bored reading the old ones) and a set of jumper and beanie in a traditional Norwegian knitting model. I used to hate them before, maybe because I also had one when I was little and it itched like hell, but now I find them really cute (and warm). 😉 What are you getting your loved ones for Christmas?

Hope to be back with a recipe soon!

xxx, Alina

December

Hi, peeps! What’s up? I’m dead tired after working alone yesterday, whisper interpreting for many hours on end is the worst and my throat is still sore. So I called it a day off, took Sammy to the woods and now I’m planning to dose off on the couch for an hour or so. 😉Skjermbilde 2016-12-01 12.13.19.png Continue reading →

It´s officially Christmas

Although I didn´t work a day last week and only a couple of hours this morning, today is my first official holiday. I can finally unwind, do the rest of the preparations and start enjoying myself. Vuong bought the tree and set it up yesterday, we were able to find one of the decoration boxes (out of two), I managed to make some cookies and will bake some more today. I also bought the last gifts and will make some chutney and sugar coated almonds as go-to gifts. 😉

It snowed a tiny bit yesterday and although it turned the sidewalks slippery, it also means the ground is not entirely bare. 😉 White Christmas this year, too! A couple of trips to the woods with Sam are mandatory and so is ice-skating in the city center, if it´s open for renting skates.

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with our friends Franck and Marion and his kids. We had a lavish brunch of yummy pancakes, scrambled eggs, ham and all the cheese and marmalades you could think of, followed by the gift-opening session where Sam gets to tear the paper once the wrapping comes off. 😉 It was a lot of fun and we felt like being with our second family. What else would you call very good friends, if not family?:-) On our way back, we had a stroll in the Sankthanshaugen park with Sam and it was delightful! All the pretty lights, the snow and the majestic buildings, plus people playing with their children and dogs in the snow..

In the evening I saw “Boyhood” with a friend at the cinema. What a fantastic movie! I´ll write a review soon, but you need to see it if you have the chance! Afterwards we had a chat over a couple of beers and a yummy pizza at Hell´s Kitchen, absolutely recommended.;-)

I hope you enjoy my pictures and that they bring you in the mood for Christmas. 😉

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Christmas market

It´s official! The Christmas market season has begun and I simply adore it! The weather is crisp, no snow yet, but you can almost feel it in the air, so it must be right around the corner! The streets are lit with decorations and people come alive with anticipation. It´s the season to be jolly,  lots of gatherings every week, be it Christmas parties, dinners or seasonal beer tasting. We´re hosting a brunch next week and are otherwise jumping from one party to another in the meantime.

Yesterday I went to Bærums Verk with a couple of friends to check out the atmosphere. We had gløgg (a sort of mulled wine, except there´s no wine, just a very sweet concoction of spices and syrup, so that children can drink it, too) while walking around, the place was teeming with people,  children were sitting in a sledge pulled by a giant Bernese Mountain dog, adults were standing in waffle queues and everywhere you could smell sugar coated almonds. We had lunch at Pannekakehuset, a Dutch concept that´s very popular (since it´s the only atmospheric place there), pea soup with spare ribs and beer. They have amazing pancakes, but I had already had that for breakfast, so my stomach wasn´t ready for that much dough. 😉

The bus ride back to town takes an hour, but we talked and laughed like high school kids, so it just flew by. It was nice to soak in some nature and get into the Christmas spirit, now I´m ready for a slow Sunday until 6 o´clock, when we´re going to our neighbor´s beer tasting party. 😉

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Christmas at the Tran residence

This year we´re celebrating Christmas in Norway with our friends and my husband´s family. Although it´s nice to go back to my mother country, Romania, which we do every other year for the holidays, it´s kind of comfortable to be at home and go about things my way. So my man brought a Christmas tree and we decorated it with Sam and Beo prowling around it and sniffing the forrest smell, I baked and cleaned and bought some pretty light chains and the imperative hyacinths, the only thing missing is a Christmas wreath, which I´ll make after taking Sam for a walk in the woods. We´re done with finding and wrapping the gifts, what´s left is buying the food and the drinks and finding the pajamas and Home alone 1 and 2. Meanwhile, I´ll be spending time baking some more and making some Christmas chutney while listening to Christmas carols. How are you spending the holidays? Merry Christmas to you all!

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