Corrie Kinkel

L = Liberation Day, on the 5th of May in the Netherlands

And we are watching it every year because it it broadcasted by the BBC which we have here, I'm looking forward to this year's!

I know it is controversial these days but from when I was a little girl we always celebrated Sinterklaas and I have the most happy memories about those 3 weeks in the year. The big department stores had made great displays in their shop-windows and the children could visit Sinterklaas there just as it is with Santa now. My grandparents always came to our house to take part. Most kids lost their faith in Sinterklaas when they were between 6 and 8 years of age and you were wondering how it was possible that Sinterklaas was in 2 different locations on the same time and wasn't looking like it was the same person. Sometimes you recognized the person playing the role of Sinterklaas was someone you knew, or you wondered how the presents arrived through the chimney when you lived in an apartment building. But after the shock of finding out, the great fun started, because you were considered old enough to start making surprise gifts for the rest of the family. Most of the time we draw lots with the name of one of the family members for whom you had to buy a present and transform it into a surprise gift which had to be accompanied with a poem. In the poem you could make fun of that person, or comment on something that had happened and you weren't happy with. But never nasty! Later we kept this tradition with our own children until our daughter moved to Switzerland where they don't know this tradition and our son didn't want to go on without his sister and my parents were to old to come because they didn't lived in the neighborhood.

I = Inauguration day, upcoming 20 January 2025

Once Moravia was known for its intricate patterns and I suspect now it still is in use for tourists too. I have seen beautiful shawls, I think when I visited Austria many years ago, but I never bought one because they were way over my budget in those days.

Nice cards and your grandson will be happy with them!

Great to hear from you and hopefully the new year will be a better one for you where your symptoms will decrease further!

Thank you Julie, very interesting and somewhat funny to see that the first photo is taken in my country! When that photo was taken there were still many people wearing traditional costume but nowadays only a handful, or just as tourist attraction where you have to pay for taking a photo.

G = Good Friday

This happened to me all the time! I don't use this anymore with 2023.

I have read this conversation and I followed the Herringbone tutorial in the Paper Workshop with out any problems!

D = Decorations, all festivities need decorations

Cristina that is exactly what I would do!

Thank you and I think I'm influenced by your fantastic photography 🥰

Ladies thank you so much, it means a lot to me when you all like my experiment. It shows me that my new iPhone 16pro with the new camera settings in iOS18 has been a good purchase, albeit an expensive one but I traded my iPhone 14pro in which made it a sound one.

Jannette soms zijn er andere dingen in het leven die véél belangrijker zijn dan alles wat we hier doen en waarover we hier praten. Heel veel sterkte de komende dagen.

The weather is still miserable here and I think I haven't seen the sun in 10 days or so. We call this period the dark days before Christmas and this year it really is appropriate. Outside it is gloomy and often wet as well and I haven't found anything to take a photo of. I would have liked to go to our local woodland park to see if there was anything worthwhile, but since we haven't a car any longer I have to go by bike and that wasn't appealing at all. We have a tall vase standing in a dark corner of our living; normally with a nice colorful artificial bouquet of flowers and greenery. At this time of the year I put small electric lights in it with some silvery leaves, not really a Xmas decoration but I'll leave it there until the days are lengthening. Without anything else to take photos I experimented with it and this is the result I like best. But hopefully next week I can go to our market square when it is almost dark to see the decorations and lights.

B = Boxing day

Yes ladies, getting older isn't always great, but I think exclaiming that in the old days everything was easier/better is something that doesn't help to get forward. Besides that, it is something the older generations have always said to the next one; for instance about the coming of the television and then the mobile phones etc. The big thing nowadays is keeping your appliances and their installed programs up to date and use a good virusscanner and different logins for each program/phone app and yes that means we have to learn new skills!!!!

Cristina nice idea to make place cards for the Xmas dinner, I hope your family/guests like them too and have kept them; they get a whole collection this way!

Julie a great layout and I love the use of those blend modes and other stuff 🙂

W = Winter Solstice

P = Presidents day

L = Lights

Today I started to decorate and opened the boxes with all the decorations. I always put all the smaller things on the dinner table to have a look what I want to use and see if anything is broken. The next thing is to remove my normal deco and dust the cabinets on with my garlands etc are coming. When I had them all opened I missed a big garland and I must be getting old because at first I couldn't even remember that last year we discarded it because it was so very tatty and the lights didn't worked any longer too. But here there is a small part displayed on the table and luckily nothing was broken.