It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

Maybe not...but at least it's beginning to LOOK a lot more like Christmas. Santa Claus came to my house today! His sleigh had been transformed into a yellow Polo with "DHL" plastered on the side, and actually, he didn't quite make it to my house. He left a note telling me to come pick up my goodies at his workshop here in town (apparently the Romanian DHL-Santa Claus doesn't do return visits when he tries to make a delivery while you are at work and not home to answer the door). So, I made the trek this afternoon & lugged my Christmas goodies home. And, no, I didn't wait until Christmas to open it (it wasn't an "official" Christmas gift...I don't think). But I did put it all under the tree. Frankly, the nativity set was looking a little bit lonely (although it was inspiring me to write a short piece about what's under the tree...I think I can write it, anyway!).



Just in case you couldn't see it all under the tree, here's a closer shot on the table before I decided that it all needed to go under the tree.



Yeah...food that I don't have to think about or make the ingredients for before I can make the dish! Rice, mac & cheese, Reese's peanut butter cups, tomato soup, peanut butter...what more could a girl want? (Seriously, that's not my entire diet. I have all the "good for me" stuff...I can buy that here. But I had absolutely nothing left that didn't require time & energy, both of which are in short supply these days.)

And fun stuff, too! A wind-up monkey who does backflips, a handtowel with a random penguin on it, yellow rubber ducky soap, a card game called "There's a Mouse in the House", Uno, and enough DVDs to double the size of my collection (not that that required too many, but still...). Oh, I mustn't forget the whoopee cushion! What shall I do with that...

Thanks, Jenny, for my first "real" package since I came to Romania (the ones I order over the internet or sent to myself while home don't count!). And thanks for all the goodies & even more for the laughs...I miss you being here to make me laugh every day!