Lille Family-Time - New Years

Traditions... inspired by Margaret with this!

Our family traditions were these:

We had the darn fondue.
Melted fat over an open flame. It was a horror each time. Dad, later my Brother, had to put the food in and out for me.

I was ready to run for in case the fat would swap into the flame and all will be "on fire" - yearly horror.

 

 

Dad´d just come back from Japan, those are real kimonos we are wearing - also he thought of Omi, his MIL, who helped raising us.

The journey was payed by SEIKO cause Dad´d sold so many watches (ha, internet these days).
 

Next we - as young kids got torn out of bed, in later years after staying alive awake... -

... at 11:99 we all went up on the "stack-sims" by the fire. 

 

 

Dad counted down, then we all held hands and jumped down together, kissed and wished us a Happy New Year, and luck... "and much more" - thank you for the memories, dear Margaret! 

Ingo still uses Dad´s word "Küsschen" for "kiss".... 

The two spent a lot of time watching the stars (I was too young and had no idea).

 

 

We wore winter-/snow suits cause another darn tradition is to go out in the cold and have firework. 

Went grocery shopping yesterday. 

People stacked up BIG with fireworks. 

I hate that. As do animals. And Mother Nature.

Dad at least only shot in the air with an empty (?) pistol (I hope!). At least not even more pollution, but I could go on endlessly with this subject...

 

Gack! Also yes, Bro and I are dressed like unlike twins!

How about your traditions?

 

These days we just watch a movie and go to bed.

 

BTW!

Granny Sue reminded me of the Nutcracker-story.

 

 

Holy-moly, I know way too much about my BIL, who is nearly my age and kinda was "raised" by his Brother, aka Ingo.

PIL had a nutcracker. Not as huge as this one, one for real use.

 

BIL, maybe aged 2, put his right finger into it´s mouth, closed that with the left.

Ouch. Closed tighter, more ouch.

He is a doctor now but does not operate people, thanks for that!!!

Everybody laughed as he kept going on this way until he cried and was "freed".

 

Whenever he got nasty the words "stop it, or the Nacker will get you!" worked!

He could not say Nussknacker yet, but called the nasty thing "Nacker".

Thank you, Sue, for the "memory" (of Ingo telling me) and sorry M, for telling it here 😉

 

So, whatever you will have for dinner tonight, if you celebrate and "jump" in the New Year or not:

 

 

Have a wonderful 2024! Full of health, fun, yummy food, success in whatever you do (so many opportunities (#halfbike)).

Thank you, too, for popping in here - you motivate me a lot!

Henry 🦁

 

 

It will be a good one!

But, a bit scary... I am for the first time in my life sad this year is over. Stupid, I know. But a fact... Maybe a sip of sparkling wine will help. Ingo took care of that (not such big ones!!).

(Jump into) A Happy 2024!

Christmas Critters

 

I come to the critters for Eileen in a sec, but this is "the entrance" to today´s last (?) Christmas-post.

 

NOT the last Christmas/New Year´s-post  - mailman Ingo JUST brought in Happy Mail!!!! Post to come!

 

 But now let us start, reckon you can guess with whom!

Please, if interested, see last post for from where Einstein came from.

On we go, here is another critter:

Yes, we go Back To The Future Past!

The car we had extra last year. And Ingo said... no to the tyres. Was difficult enough in the first place to assemble them!

This is why I said 23 doors of fun. Door #24 got the wrong figure and we could by no means assemble the gear from door #23!!!

See. All failures end up here. This was no exception.

@River... I asked Sami. There are reject shops in Perth. Give me strength not to go there!

 

Instead we go...

 

 We certainly watched all 3 movies!

I always love Tom´s rear-mirror-pics - here are two from the movie #3:

 

 

Then...

 

 

 

 

 A hoverboard. Hm. As River asked what a halfbike is... here goes:

 

Why I have a boy´s bike? You have to bring the bikes inside. The girl´s one certainly was more heavy (also I´m too small for adult´s bikes). I used to bring mine into the cellar. Was OK at our former home. 

Stairs too steep here, so it waits in the living room.

 

A halfbike is like an old-fashioned skateboard. It has no saddle, it has no steering.

You have to use your body/balance to turn left or right. It has a gear shift and a break, though.

It will be a very tough job to learn to ride it, I guess. Wish me luck!

As my admin-T said, if you rode a skateboard (which I did) you should be able to ride this, also!

Good weather, clean street for starters. Both a lack right now, so it sits stands here, waiting.

 

Maybe "in The Future"! (to pick up the actual subject)

  

And that was that for today, folks. As said yesterday: Thanks to ALL bloggy hosts!!!

Henry 🦁

 

You saw me peek on our heroine!

To a great 2024!

 

Oh, before I forget, critter #3:

 

 

 

FFO And Loads Of Smiles

 

... so I can join Nicole´s FFO!

 

 

I hope you all got your pressies, the sleigh was quite heavy - you all must´ve been good this year!

 

And if not.... here is a smile... well loads of for Annie´s Smiles!
 

 

And as it´s still Christmas over here...

December started with this! 

 One of my fav movies!

 

 

23??? I´ll explain tomorrow...

It´s not only the language-mix you see above... it was cheap for another reason...

 

 

In case...

Or a laugh?

Our Peanut hides them everywhere!

Can you believe the year is nearly over???? I can not.

 

(see sign in background - Santa is Mr. Logic!)

Henry 🦁

 

 

To our hosts!!!! ALL of you, be it Monday (Sami), Tuesday (Elizabeth), Wednesday (Tom), Thursday (Rain), today (Nicole & Annie, River) or Saturday (Eileen)!

I thank you all!

 

Also ... to Mom. She left us today in 2011. Darn cancer, you.

But!!! Will talk to Bro - it will make it all better. 😘

To All Goblins!

 

If you just pop in: Christmas-week still, as we are on holiday.... (at home again).

 

"My" company sure takes care! 

There is also a notebook, pens and mints (I got later).

 

Well, as you maybe know I was one of the three who had to pack the advent-calendars into envelopes too small cause someone forgot the third dimension, gahhhh.....  

 

 It´s a ball game (yes, is, I´m not into sweets and not done).

This was not all, of course! We are an engineering company! Chocolate alone will not do!

 

No worries, you do not need to program COBOL (though COBOL is still around!!!).

Wiki: "COBOL ... is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use."

 

The "COBOL" in the Advent-calendar wants to destroy Christmas!!!!

And we need to save it!!!! 

I wonder how many of my colleagues even knew the relation of COBOL, because...

 

Year 2000, I was at a job fair and someone asked me if I know COBOL.

I mistook that for Kobold and went away!

Boy, that was embarrassing in the aftermath!!!

Wiki: "A kobold (occasionally cobold) is a mythical sprite. Having spread into Europe with various spellings including "goblin" and "hobgoblin", and later taking root and stemming from Germanic mythology, the concept survived into modern times in German folklore.".

Meep.

More to come!

 

Henry 🦁

 

 

Henry, I was far from programming back then!

 

To join Rain with a word for the next year I go with the card  my neighbors gave us:

 

 

TRALALALALA!

 

Whatever happens, I will try to go "TRALALALALA".

And food-wise, as this is art and dinner (the card is the art) and banana goes tralalala:

 

That was it now with the sweet stuff! Soon.

 

 

Tom Let Us Know...

...in this post that "TODAY IS NATIONAL FRUITCAKE DAY."

Complaints to Tom, please, about the coming post 😉 - it´s two in a row and both "his fault" - kidding, dear host!

 

It was 1999, September, I think 23rd. We had just visited Kings Canyon - or have we been more to the West already, either way I needed to refill our car.

Why ever, to Germans cars are male and we called him "Baby", maybe because he was so darn huge. Was I thankful he had these help-thingies to get in!

Either way,it was somewhere in nowhere. I went in to pay, we also needed ice for our Esky and...

Ingo´s Birthday was coming up - what.to.do????

Such gas stations in the Outback have food, of course but all I found was a....

 

 OK, so.

Ingo was waiting, right?

I had the ice in front and walked a bit like the The Hunchback of Notre-Dame because I had the fruitcake behind my back.

MUST´ve looked funny.

To this day Ingo states he didn´t notice.

I was able to put the ice into the Esky and sneak the cake to the side.

It was HORRIBLY sweet (and I bought it as "diet-cake", whatever that is!), I heard Ingo crunching from the sugar on his Birthday!!!!

(I tried just a wee bit, yuck!)

And that was that with cake in Australia!

And as said before, this week is still Christmas here, so:

Merry Christmas!

If you wanna learn what an Esky is, or about a love that came in late and a great song, please scroll down!