Happy New Year! Goodbye December! (Part 1)

Happy New Year friends and readers!
I hope 2017 will be a better year than the ones before for everyone!
Let's all be hopeful although again it started with a terrorist attack in Turkey. But let's be hopeful!
December passed so fast I think it went away in a blink of my eyes!
Here's what we did during the month.
School is always hectic in December.We finished the term and gave reports to parents. We also organised school festivities and on my part I taught my pupils how to sing Christmas songs in English and presented some of them during the festivities. There was a Parents' Association school bazaar too and I gave away some of my handmade things for them to sell.
In photos...
December started with a beautiful sunset.

It was taken on our way to visit the first Art Thessaloniki, an international contemporary art fair that took place in the city organised by HELEXPO and our friend Pandelis Tsatsis of Artforum Gallery. Pandelis and his wife Eva Apostolidou and I live in the same block of flats and have known each other for years so we were invited to the fair. It was very nice to be there.
We saw some lovely paintings.Under each photo you can see the name of the artist.

Maria Diakodimitriou At the train station Mixed media

Sophia Aditani

Dimitris Kretsis

Pavlos

 Tasos Chonias

 This one is by our friend Alexandros Dimitriadis.

And this one by our friend Glykeria Kalfa.
I loved this one by Manolya Celikler from Turkey. It was a stitched photo something we had done some years ago with Etsy Greek Street Team at a workshop I had presented.

During December I took part in a photo book challenge #bookxmas suggested by So little sleeping and so much reading. I will add only the first photo here and you will see all the photos in a future

blogpost.

The first weekend of December with the Teachers' Association Drama Club we mounted our adult play Griothesia at Amalia Theatre. We were full house both days! People loved the play and we enjoyed it so much too!

In December we went to some more bazaars. First at the Stray Dogs bazaar. We adopted Barca from them and we always go to their bazaar to support them.Always taking Barca with us of course as they love to see her every time!

 Here's what I bought at the bazaar.Some things for gifts and some books of course.

Another evening we went to see a play inside the Byzantine Museum.It was an experimental play directed by our old friend and acting teacher Damianos Konstandinidis. And one of the actresses is a former pupil of mine Stella Papadopoulou. It was very good and we really enjoyed it.

Here with Stella Papadopoulou and Damianos Konstandinidis.

With the school we went to an outing at the Secret Worlds of Eugenios Trivizas.

Evgenios Trivizas is an author of many famous children's books. The interactive exhibition was nice and the children loved it.

 Another bazaar I went to was at Koumbi coffee and crafts cafe were we exchanged craft materials.
Here's what I got for the things I gave.

In December I sent and received mail and parcels. Some of the parcels were of the exchanges I took part in.
Here's the parcel I received in the exchange of the Secret crafter organised by Anna of In my closet.

And here's what I had sent.I will blog about it in detail in a future blogpost.

I also sent my parcel for the So little sleeping and so much reading exchange.

I will blog about this separately too.

 One more bazaar I went to was the Upnloud flea market at Lab'attoir. I loved it. There were lots of beautiful things to see, handcrafted and vintage.My friends Lia of Me and Mama Creations and Angeliki of Poco Loco were there with beautiful things.

I went for the vintage part and here's what I got.Some vintage items and some books.

Of course in December I decorated the  Christmas tree. Two years ago I gave away my old  gorgeous huge Christmas tree to my school as it was too big for our living-room. So we didn't decorate a tree last year. But this year I really wanted one so I decorated a small real one and I really loved it!

I mainly decorated it with hand crafted items made by me or by friends.

Underneath the tree I put a ceramic Nativity scene bought the year my son was born.

I also put up a cross stitched framed winter picture.

I also put up the lights I had bought in Finland and my friend Marabeth's beautiful  Jeffrey P'an's blown glass bauble.

The city was also decorated in beautiful lights. Here are the lights in front of the Municipality Hall.

One evening we went to Kilkis town, an hour away from Thessaloniki to attend the 

Puppet and Mime Festival that annually takes place there.It was a very cold evening.

Outside the venue there were these two huge puppets.

Inside there was an exhibition with Indonesian puppets.

 There we met Athos Danellis, Yiannis Chatzis and Odysseas Kanlis, all Greek Shadow Puppeteers.It was great meeting them all and attending Athos Danellis' performance.

 Another bazaar I went to in December was in my neighbourhood for the Melissa Orphanage. This is what I got from there. A lovely Zara Home Advent Calendar wooden box.

I also visited an exhibition of porcelain and glass from various European countries presented inside Yeni Cami in my neighbourhood.

 During December our seafront offered us amazing walking chances.

With the Teachers' Association Drama Club we had one more performance, this time of our children's play Game Over for the children with special needs of "Allazo" association. After the performance they treated us to a lovely meal outside Saint Trinity chapel at Retziki and as the weather was sunny and not too cold we really enjoyed it.

In December a painting I had ordered from Stephania Patrikiou arrived and I really loved it. The Deep will decorate the beach house.

The two books I read this month and with which I complete the reading challenge #readathon16 of
So little sleeping and so much reading were The Man who Wanted to be King by Rudyard Kipling

and Jennifer Donnelly's third book The Wild Rose which complete the trilogy.This was the 52nd book I read this year and that made me really happy!

(End of part 1, Part 2 to follow soon I hope!)