Saying goodbye to 2012

As this is the last day of the year I would light to give you in photos the highlights of it for me.
January
Pensioner teacher performances

February
Performances of "Koutornithia" for schools for a week.

March
Presentation of "Captain Michael" by Kazantzakis.

April
Trip to Romania with the Teachers' Association.

May
School trip to Volos and Pelion Mountain.

June
Praise by the Educational Manager of our area for the Pensioner Teacher performances.

July
Trip to Athens for the Shadow Puppet Festival.

August
Holidays at the beach house.

September
Watched the whole series of Downton Abbey and loved it!And saw the best sunset sky ever in my city.

October
Many highlights here.
I met with my sea glass friend Dawn from the States and with my Turkish friend Aykut.

Started my own etsy shop thalasseaglass.

Travelled to Skiathos island to my sea glass friend Frieda.

November
Demonstrations against the very strict financial measures and for the liberation of our Representative Teacher who was accused of demonstrating against the German delegate.
And finally December that had very sad moments of sudden deaths so I won't talk about this month as there is no positive highlight in it.
I just hope the new year 2013 will be better, and we will all feel happy, we will all keep healthy and our financial situation will get better.
Thank you for being here all through this year, for reading me, commenting, following, supporting. Hope you will stay with me for the next year too.
Have a great New Year!

Christmas gifts.

We are trying to keep this Christmas at low budget and we are not exchanging gifts, not expensive ones anyway.
Still I got some gifts so here they are.
This sewing machine from hubbie. This one was not a surprise as we went for it together at the supermarket and bought it at a very good price along with its accessories back in October. Guess what? I haven't used it yet!

This little Christmas glass tree from my brother for my collection. He was rather disappointed to see that we didn't decorate the collection this Christmas but we really didn't have any free space for it!LOL!

And this porcelain transferware bowl that again hubby bought for me this time when I saw it at the antique flea market. I made the discussion on the price though and got it for very cheap. If anyone can help with identifying it I would be obliged.

Of course we received sweets and wine from my best friend and lots of gifts in the mail which I will show later!
Thank you everyone for sending wishes through the mail and by e-mails and comments here on the blog and on facebook. I am sorry if I have missed some comments or have not answered to every one. I am still working on my Christmas mail which has not been completed yet!
Enjoy the holidays!

It's good to have a family Christmas!

Sorry if the title sounds a bit nostalgic to all those who spent Christmas away from family and relatives....

What I enjoy about Christmas is that first I am not tired because I don't work and second because we meet with the family.

(blurred photos of the tree...I was playing with the camera)
So on Christmas Eve after a short visit from my brother and sister-in-law I made some popcorn and then we watched IceAge4. It was great! I love children's movies that are fun to be watched by adults as well.

(The lights of Finland still shine over my sea glass gifts from around the world thanks to Johanna who sent me little light bulb replacements)
Then at midnight I opened the two parcels I had under the tree from Juliana and Marabeth. I will show you what was inside in a later post.

(I added some Christmas lights in a frosty bottle and that stands next to my caroler, another of Marabeth's gifts from previous years)
Bytheway I must remember next year not to show my cookies and chocolates photos on the blog before I actually give them because I spoil the surprise!My brother and sister-in-law knew what their sweets would be from the blog!Oooops!
On Christmas day I made my friend Areti's feta cheese pie for the first time to take to my brother's and it was a success!
Here it is...

So we had Christmas dinner at my brother's.

There was stuffed turkey of course with potatoes and lots of salads and appetisers.

Don't you find this type of broccoli strange?It was delicious though! And after some questions I looked it up. It is called Chou Romanesco and it is a Roman type of broccoli-cauliflower.What is most strange about this is that it's a natural fractal and has a Fibonacci number in its spirals. If you have read The DaVinci Code you understand!
I didn't take many photos of the food as I had my mind in eating it!LOL!
And then there were sweets...

My sister-in-law made Christmas chestnut log and my brother made baklava. Yummie!

"What shall I eat?" wonders my niece.

Of course I admired all of my brother's Christmas glass tree collection!
Hope you all had a great day!

Getting ready for Christmas...

Thank you all so very much for your comments and for being here. I am still unable to answer directly on the comments so I just try to use personal e-mails for that.
I am trying to catch up with my favourite blogs too but they are too many.
Anyway last night I wrote a couple of Christmas cards and prepared a couple of packets so they are off this morning not in time for Christmas unfortunately. I still have more cards to write and letters and e-mails.....
I spent the whole of this morning baking. Here are the things I made....
Chocolate chip orange peel little muffins in Marabeth's muffin tray,

  White chocolate almond truffles,

  caramel chip, whole hazelnut dark chocolates and white chocolate, almond, cranberry cookies I found in Paula's otchipotchi blog. She always makes lovely cookies for Christmas.

And here is the dish I sent to my mother-in-law. Wrapped and ribbons added of course.

These are for relatives and friends and for us as well. As you can see I am not the one to make the usual Greek melomakarona and kourabiedes sweets that are traditional. Maybe I will make some later.
We will spend Christmas Eve at home just relaxing. I will open my presents from my friends abroad.Juliana's and Marabeth's parcels are under the tree I am so looking forward to this!
And we will probably watch a movie I think it is going to be Ice Age 4. When we first watched Ice Age 1 my son was small and we still went to the cinema together watching children's movies. I admit I miss that!
So popcorn and movies tonight, cozy with candles and the tree lights for us. Maybe a hot soup too.
I hope you enjoy a relaxing sweet atmosphere on Christmas Eve wherever you are.

with

and

from all of us here!
(Star and Joy ornaments made by me, Peace dove ornament made by my Portuguese pen friend Maria Jose)

Holidays at last....

After a whirlwind of things to be done in December and all the latest very sad tragedies around us schools closed their doors for 15 days so now it's ...holiday time! Hurray!!!!
It is so sad that other people I know will not celebrate this Christmas but as my dear friend Cathy just told me ....

"...Please don't be sad at this festive time. We cannot heal the world, and so we should do our best to make our part of it as beautiful, as peaceful and as filled with love as we can...." ....I decided to follow her advice! Since yesterday afternoon I am off school and all I want to do is have the best of time. That means no obligations, no chores, no bad feelings and bad mood, no more terrible news affecting my family, friends and the world!Can that happen? Maybe if we are all lucky. This week was such a loooong tiring but fulfilling week. Sunday morning we started early with rehearsal and then the actual performance of our play at the State Theatre for the Lampsi.org (the association of parents with children with cancer). The performance went great and we had more than 300 people in the audience which was very good. We also got the congratulations of the technicians of the theatre who considered our Drama club one of the best amateurs they have seen!That was quite an honour. A great meal followed the performance.If you want to see photos of the performance you can visit the Drama Club page on facebook. The chandelier of the main performance of the theatre.  The State Theatre of Thessaloniki.  Red and orange hen! I tried to relax a bit on Monday evening and made some wire rings to give as gifts.Unfortunately there are no photos of them as I forgot to take some! On Tuesday afternoon my friend Frieda came from Skiathos. It was so great to meet her again. We went together to the Ethnological Museum and attended the scarf folding technique workshop and the bazaar.  My friend Yioula's creations. Then we walked to the Vafopouleion Institute where we wanted to visit the Melissa orphanage bazaar and the exhibition of comic strips by Kostas Voutsas whom I have known for years. We loved his exhibition and sketches. We also loved the great buffet that was there and we enjoyed the coffee and food and sweets they served. On Wednesday hubby and I took part in the Lawyers' Union children's party. I was at the card making workshop and hubby was taking pictures.Then we watched Annie acted out by the Lawyer's Association Drama club.It was quite good. It is great helping out our friend who had undertaken the organization of this party and have fun too. On Thursday just after school I met with my Practice students for coffee and I gave each one of them a ring that I made myself. The colours remind me a bit of the English flag, so that they can remember our time together and their first experience as teachers. In the afternoon Frieda came home for coffee and then we went together to my jewelry course. I admit Frieda's jewelry piece was better than mine but we both enjoyed the fun of making something together again. Friday morning was the last day of school and we had our Christmas songs presentation again. My pupils did very well and we enjoyed this so much. The music teacher was very good with the tube orchestra.  But my little ones were also very good with Father Christmas and The lights on the tree.  The kindergarten pupils waiting to perform the Nativity. Then Frieda and I went to the Open Day Christmas party of the nearby 1st High School of Thessaloniki. That was fun because I met so many old students of mine and their parents helping out.My 15-year-old neighbour upstairs was the DJ of the big party they had!Thank God he didn't practice his musical talent over my flat! We said our goodbyes after that with Frieda and we hope we will meet again soon. In the evening we had a rehearsal with the Drama Club again and afterwards we had a party for dear hubby's nameday! Pheeeeeeew!What a week!Sorry this is so long but I really want to tell you all the things that have happened in December before the month and the year is out!