Some Christmas pictures

My Mum is only child, so... in her family, it's always easy to know who will be the Christmas host...

My Dad has 3 sisters and one brother. Two sisters are not married (and one is ... well... strange... - goes to bed at 18:00 and wake up at 3:00 am...), the brother left France and we see him every ... ten years ?

So... easy to know who will be the Christmas host...

On December 24th, Christmas Eve, my Grand Parents (Mum's parents) are coming home. Because they live near Paris, that my Grand Dad doesn't want to drive anymore (he's 84, almost 85) ... Anyway, they come on December 24th and stay until December 26th...

On December 25th, you have to add my other Grand Parents for the Christmas lunch. You can be sure that the door bell rings at 12:00. This year was a little bit different because of the snow. My Dad picked them at their home, it was easier.

You also add my aunt Nicole, Dad's eldest sister. And usual, you also have to add my aunt Mireille (Dad's second eldest sister), my uncle-Godfather Jean-Dominique and my cousin Benjamin. But this year, we changed, they came during the afternoon, and at lunch we had our Australian friend Melanie. (in fact they didn't come because Jean-Do's mother is old and she has Alzheimer's disease... So, this year, they were with her.)

Here are some pictures of the afternoon...

from left to right : Aunt Mireille, Cousin Benjamin, Big brother Julien, Sister Maud, lil' brother Pierre and I.

Yes, this year was special, the four of us were at home ! Mum was really happy !

And because we were all here, my Grand Dad said : "Oh, you will have the occasion to take a picture with the four of you, the one I have is too old..."

Hard mission... 

All the group pictures was the same afternoon.

Mission : Have one GOOD picture of the four children... Good luck !

 

and then, it was "Concert time".

My lil' brother is learning electric guitar since one year and a half... We never heard him play. So, we decided that he will play a little bit for Christmas. He didn't play, but we had fun with the guitar, especially my sister !

 

Grand-Pa and Melanie.

(the story of Melanie will be told ... later !)

 

Aunt Mireille 

  
Uncle/Godfather Jean-Do

And Cousin Benjamin.
Ok, I have two other cousins (Camille and Paul) who are my uncle Alain's children. But... we never see them... to bad !
At this moment, he was playing with the guitar and the amp. He thought that the sound sounded like Darth Vader, and so, on this picture is playing Darth Vader... (ok, did I tell you that my cousin was a comedian ?)

And this is our friend Melanie.

First time she came in France, she was in Junior High, travelling with her class from Melbourne to Paris. Her school had a penfriend agreement with my lil' brother's Junior High. And unfortunately, some French families were missing for some Australian people. So my Mum said she was ok to host one of them. We were supposed to have another girl, and at the last minute they gave us Melanie, a wonderful girl, with a lot of curiosity. She was dreaming about France and wanted to see everything in one month. So she made all the visits she had to do with her class, and asked to my parents other visits. Believe me, my parents were really happy because we hosted a lot of foreign teenagers (mostly Germans because we all learn German and we had German penfriends) and it was awfull, they didn't care about their trips, the only thing they wanted was "being with the friends" ... OUCH !

So we took her everywhere, and a month later she was going back to Australia with her class.

Back there, she went to High School and has been graduated. 

Since Melanie is a kid, she says to her parents that she will do her Medicine studies in France. So, she came back in September 2009 for her first year of Medicine.

Like a lot of students (well, in France, don't know about the other countries), she failed. So, this year, she doing a second first year and feels good about it. (she's 19 years old, by the way !)

Isn't it crazy ?

In France, Medicine is 10 years of studies. She left her country, Australia, all by herself to come here in Paris.... Wow. Don't know if I can do that !

The first semester is over in France, she's waiting for her results. I think she's gonna have it ! (we all think that, and I think that she thinks that too !)

 

PS : I may have a good news on Thursday, but, you will have to wait Thursday... See if you can guess what it is...