Christmas

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus in Russia on 25 December….

At least, that's what our children decided when they woke up on Wednesday and found:

Stockings for E and K:
crayons
tiny notebook
horse finger puppet (which Santa must have found at IKEA)
small soft teddy bear with a heart (ditto)
puzzle (80 pieces Snow White, 108 pieces Russian village scene)

Stockings for baby A (who is 16 months old this week!):
mini toy animals
same teddy bear & horse finger puppet

Santa had a long way to come, and didn't label any of the bags, so they are all share things:

--Konstruktor set (that's the generic term for building blocks like Legos.  This particular brand was the LQC version, but still cool for kids--we didn't bring any and they had really missed building things)

--Basic wooden train tracks & little trains (Santa likes IKEA here, but these really are the classic wooden train tracks, and the first set for our kids, they love them!)

--cups for dolls (plastic IKEA set of 8)

--Cube puzzle (6 different puzzles glued onto six sides of cubes, they range anywhere from 4 cubes to 12 cubes, this has 9.  they are very common in Russia to teach logical thinking before using jigsaw puzzles--even baby A can't swallow these--tho she certainly tried chewing the corners)
(And the best part, as far as E and K are concerned, the pictures are from My Little Pony!)

--plastic balls for playing "fetch" with baby A (she is our very old golden retriever)

Bread pudding for brunch (was all the oven could muster, and that badly), and sautéed turkey strips, rice and squash (some sautéed, some pureed) for 'dinner' (earlier than usual).

We finished the gingerbread cookies from someone at church from Sunday, and ate through two bags of mandarin oranges.

Another gift from someone at church, a bag of wrapped chocolate candies, we saved until the kids went to bed.

There may be challenges living in Russia, but finding fantastic chocolate (bars and candy boxes and individually wrapped candies) is not one of them.  Yum.

Merry Christmas.