Four Days Until Christmas...

The excitement & anticipation grows.

It is unbelievable how fast Christmas has come around this year. It seems like just yesterday we were sweltering in the summer heat and now we are shivering and preparing for our Christmas. The hive of activity all around is amazing and there is a tangible feeling of excitement in the air !

The children of course are turbo charged with anticipation for what is under their trees. The younger ones have been designing and writing their ' wish-list letter ' to Santa for the last few month. Those who are more realistic, anticipated all kind of problems and have crafted two or more letters to Santa...the postman could loose one ! Or maybe just to make sure that they get what they want. Gosh, that is parental pressure for you.

Here in our part of Burgenland, it is tradition to have a selection of sweet & yummy biscuits in the house. It is called " Mehlspeise " and most women bake long hours, to have them for this festive season. Of course they can be bought at the bakeries as well.

We have a few good bakeries in the area, who sell Mehlspeise by the pound and probably make tons of it. Apparently, I heard in gym class last night, they have had such a demand for Mehlspeise, that they have closed early on some days ( sold out, but they make more each night )...Wow, business is blooming and a few ladies will have to make their own Mehlspeise ( This writer as well, because as soon as Bob reads this, he will want to have some ).

The programming on the various TV stations has been nice as well. This week there have been plenty of Christmas-movies. Heartwarming and definitely feel good fare. Bob of course rolls his eyes and calls them ' Schmalzy ' and pretends to suffer through them...please believe me, he likes watching them as much as I do, and has been known to shed a tear or two !

The week before Christmas...just fabulous. It also gives us time to haul out the stretchy-waist pants, because we all know that we will do justice to all the delectables that go hand-in-hand with Christmas !

Biggi