Infectious spirit

I have a sickly girl home from school today.  Some infectious snotty fever bug that's got them all. She's on her second box of tissues and has been dozing on the couch in the afternoons, with an appetite only for sliced up peeled apple (such a treat!!)

The advent 'treat' today was to make a Christmas tree for the kids' bedroom. No amount of sneezing was going to stop the FlourGirl.  She has more Christmas spirit than the rest of us combined I think, but luckily it is infectious too.  She had even chosen to put on a very very cheesey old CD someone gave us of Belgian kids singing Flemish Christmas songs. You have to hear it to believe it - lots of lyrics about Saint Nicholas and his slave helper Black Pete. Roughly translated there's also a line: "who good is gets lollies /  who naughty, the cane". My Dutch is good enough to hear all the un-PC bits and bad enough that I can tune out most of the rest...

So with the scene set, I ventured out in to our frozen yard and snapped a big twig off the faux-apple tree.  The FlourGirl wasn't impressed until I told her she could paint it white and cover it with glitter. But the baby was sleeping between us and the paint cupboard and I was not going to so much as breathe near his door, so we skipped the white paint and I convinced her to go with Santa coloured snow flakes. I just glued some silver embroidery thread to each flake, and we hung them in the knobbly branches. TOO EASY!

I like it so much I might just keep it in the lounge.