How to throw a Christmas Bauble Party...

What?  You've never heard of a Christmas Bauble party?  Dahlink!  I just can't imagine... Oh, wait.  That was me two weeks ago.  But then an invitation dropped into my inbox, and on Wednesday this week, I went along and was introduced to this hilarious (new) Christmas tradition.  I had such a good time, I thought I would share it with you, so here's my step by step guide.

1.  Invite a group of probably between 10 - 20 girlfriends over.

2.  Ask your girlfriends to go out and purchase a Christmas bauble for anything from £1 - £10.  (Please note; it does not have to be an actual bauble, but something that can hang on the tree is good.)  Instruct them to wrap their bauble as prettily as possible - so that it can't be seen - and leave it on a table just inside the front door when they arrive, so that no-one knows who has brought which parcel.

3.  Once everyone has arrived, ask them to draw a number from 1 to whatever the final number of people is, and hold onto their ticket.

4.  Get everyone seated, and put the pretty packages in the middle of the room.  Then invite the holder of ticket #1 to choose a parcel.

5.  #1 must open the parcel in full view of everyone in the room, so that all the other guests can see what they've received.

6.  Then #2 is invited to take a parcel.  OR - and this is crucial - they can also choose to 'steal' the bauble that has just been opened by #1.

7.  If #2 chooses to steal #1's bauble, #1 gets to choose another parcel to open.  The contents of which may be stolen yet again, by #3, who#'s turn it will be next.  #3, you see, gets to choose a gift from the table, or to steal either of the bauble's already in the possession of #1 and #2.

8.  And so it goes on, with each subsequent person in the numbered order getting a wider choice of baubles to 'steal' from the other players - or of course they can choose, sight unseen, to take a wrapped one from decreasing number on the table.

What is very important to know, however, is that each bauble can only be 'stolen' 3 times.  The person who steals it for the 3rd time gets to keep it.

This party is perfect if you have a group of friends who can be relied upon to keep their sense of humour if their new favourite Christmas decoration is stolen from them at the last minute by someone they usually call their bff, if they find themselves opening the booby prize of the most tasteless bauble imaginable, or if they end up as the new owner of the pair of novelty pants that some joker decided to throw into the mix for a laugh.  Which of course didn't happen to anyone I knew...

And that, friends, is how to throw a Christmas Bauble party, and I promise you - you won't regret it.

You're welcome.

Parenting Dilemmas: When your children do something wrong - but you totally get why they did it.

Boy #2, now aged 7, had a friend of the same age over to play today.  All was going swimmingly, until Friend noticed two girls that he knows through the fence that runs along the back of our garden, playing on a trampoline.  Friend has a bit of an eye for the ladies.  Not in an inappropriate way, just in a 'I like to chat to girls' way.  The boy is going to be a smooooooth operator when he gets a few years older, I can tell you.

Anyhoo.  Friend decided that chatting with the girls was far more interesting than playing with Boy #2, and nothing that Boy #2 said - no offers of lego, no car games, no suggestions to go to the compound playground - could persuade him otherwise.

Boy #2 put up with this for a while.  But then, the injustice of the situation - as he saw it, you understand - got to him.

He waited until the grown-ups were safely out of sight, and then proceeded to cool the situation down.  By turning the garden hose on his friend.

Friend was soaked - right down to his underwear - and unsurprisingly, not impressed.  However, after a quick change of clothes (and shoes - Boy #2, when he gets an idea in his head, likes to do things properly), they made up and retired to the compound playground far away from distraction.  And girls.

So, here is my admission.  I was cross with Boy #2.  I made him apologise, not only to his friend but to his friend's mother, who had to deal with the soaked clothes and trainers (after I had put them in the washing machine on a spin cycle, they were so wet).  I listened to his explanation for doing it in the first place - that he thought it would be funny - and suggested that a) it wasn't, b) perhaps it had more to do with his not wanting his friend to ignore him than trying to be funny and c) if he wanted his friends to continue to come over to play, behaving like that was probably not in his own best interest, and finding alternative solutions - not involving freezing cold water - would be preferable.

I think my remarks registered.

But, in spite of all that, I have to admit to a sneaking admiration for his actions...

Is that wrong?

When you know you're doing something right...

After school today, Boy #2 and I were waiting for his brother to arrive before heading home.  One of Boy #2's classmates was also there, waiting to be collected.  They were shooting the breeze about how Classmate had just been given the i-phone 5 by his mum (note: this is not impossible, even for a 6 year old, in Russia) when Boy #1 arrived.

Boy #2 to his brother: "HIIIIII."

Classmate:  "Who's that?"

Boy #2:  "That's my brother, Boy #1."

Classmate:  "Oh.  I thought he was your friend."

Boy #2:  "He is my friend."

Classmate:  "But I thought he was your brother?"

Boy #2:  "He is my brother."

Classmate:  "But you said he was your friend?"

Boy #2:  "He's my brother, and my friend."

Obviously, they were still niggling each other and wailing loving remarks like 'don't look at me!' all the way home.  But it was glimpse, and that's enough for now...

Luxury Problem #78: Making and keeping friends as an Expat

We've been in Moscow over two years now. I can hardly believe it, to be honest; it seems to have passed in the blink of an eye. I wouldn't change having had this experience for anything. As you get older it can become harder to shake things up a bit, to push yourself out of your comfort zone, to experience a grittier reality than you've become used to now that you have a mortgage, the kids are settled into school, and you're surrounded by people you've known for a while.

Moving somewhere like Russia provides a 'grittier reality' in spades.

This is, I tell myself frequently, a Good Thing. Life here is just so damned entertaining. From the jams, to the bureaucracy, to the queues (or rather, the lack of them), to the glorious winter days and the long summer evenings, to the black-humoured locals and the host of oh-so-foreign experiences hanging like ripe fruit waiting to be picked whenever you can pull yourself out of the daily routine, it's rarely boring.

But there's always a price to pay, and part of this is turnover. Turnover of people, that is. I remember when I arrived, I heard new acquaintances say that whilst they loved being in Moscow, they were ready to move on/go home. From my perspective, flushed with the novelty of living in an interesting town surrounded by interesting people, their lives seemed full and exciting. They and their families were happy, and they were reaping the rewards of their expat life-style. Why on earth, I wondered, would they want to leave?

But then they did, by which time they had become good friends - and I began to understand. It can be lonely being an expat in this town. The majority of foreigners move on within 2 - 4 years, and whilst there are the stayers, even they - unless married to a Russian - are unlikely to stay forever. Hell, I don't want to stay forever, why should they?

I learned recently that yet another good friend may be leaving this summer (in addition to those that I already knew of). For some reason this new news is hitting me hard. Of course we'll stay in touch. No doubt we will even meet up from time to time, on holiday or short trips. But they won't be here, going through the daily ups and downs of life in the same place at the same time, and I'll feel the lack of them.

I will, of course, pick myself up, meet new friends, have new shared experiences. But a little of the shine wears off each time I print out yet another photo for a friend who's leaving and I contemplate rejoining the expat dance, putting myself out there and building new connections in the full knowledge that at some point - probably before too long - I will have do the whole thing all over again.

It's a luxury problem, I know, and it's all about me*. But that knowledge doesn't make this aspect of my 'entertaining' life any more welcome...

* But then this is a blog post for goodness' sake - what did you expect?

Lost: One Friend

I lost a friend. Not today, not yesterday, and not in the eternal sense; as far as I know, she's still out there, somewhere. Scratch that: she's not 'somewhere' - I know exactly where she is. It's just that wherever she is, it's not in my life, not any more.

I don't know why she doesn't want to be in contact. I've turned it over and over in my mind, and am no closer to a real answer. Maybe it was when I did this. Perhaps it was when I said that. It was probably the time I didn't do the other thing. Possibly I wasn't forgiving enough of whatever, or understanding enough of 'that' situation. Or did she just finally lose patience with my attitude to something I didn't even realise was an issue for her? Was I so self-involved that I couldn't see her drowning / moving on / washing her hands of me when she needed me to?

I know friendships are often cyclical. People come into our lives and go out of them when the seasons change; as an expat I see that happen now with alarming regularity. But there are some friends that you imagine will always be present in your life; whether you see them weekly, monthly, yearly or once every 4 years, there's still that bond. The time in between your meetings doesn't matter when you finally get your feet under the same table with a bottle of wine or a cup of tea in your hands, and this friend was one of those.

I have others, of course, some as close and who know me as well as she did. Friends who've also been there for the mountainous highs and the lows so deep that walking into the kitchen cupboard, turning the light off, and closing the door behind me to shut out the static seemed the only viable option.

Thank god, they are still there. But for whatever reason, she's not. And it turns out that some friendships will stay with you, whether they are are active or not. So I think of her, maybe when I'm listening to a piece of music that reminds me of a shared memory (I'm listening to Adele's '21' as I write this and I just know she would bloody love it), and wonder what is happening in her world. I wonder whether it was a conscious act to cut me out of her life, or if that's simply how it turned out, and that I'm just not relevant to her situation any more. I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question, actually.

From time to time, I wonder if she ever thinks of me & mine. I wonder if she reads this blog. I wonder if she's reading this post. But mostly, I just miss her friendship.

I've been thinking about this post for a while but was inspired to write it today by this piece over at Jane Alexander's Diary of a Desperate Exmoor Woman

Togetherness - apart

It's Week 46 of Tara's Gallery, and this week's theme is 'Togetherness'...

Life can be a bit shit sometimes - yes, even here, in expat heaven. Luckily, for me at least, there are compensations, like the wonderful birthday lunch that a friend hosted for me in her home yesterday where I was totally bowled over by the warmth and generosity I felt from people who in real terms I've known for only a relatively short time. It seems to me that one of the benefits of growing older is that we all become better at making worthwhile friendships. I'm not sure why that is; perhaps we take less notice of the book cover and more notice of what lies inside. Or maybe we waste less time judging and more time just enjoying each other's company.

Well, whatever it is, I have to say that it certainly makes turning thirty-fourteen a whole lot easier. Thankyou, ladies. You brighten my life.

As did a visit by my sister this weekend just passed. Growing up we had a love/hate relationship. It wasn't until I left home that we became real friends rather than simply blood relations, and now she's my best friend, the one to whom I can tell all, and the one with whom I can spend five minutes on a skype call cracking up at our attempts to mimic those cctv camera shots of a bobsleigh team going round a corner at high speed. (Well, sis was doing the hard work actually, in her husband's bright red ski-helmet with her face pressed right up close to the webcam. Lord, the things you can find funny at the end of a long day...).

Anyway, I'm not going to show you that shot, but one of the pair of us looking glamourous in the snow (ha!) as we stood in front of the massed tanks, planes, and guns of the Red Army Museum here in Moscow on Sunday. Yep, we really know how to show our visitors a good time...

The Gallery; Friendship

Tara's prompt for this week's Gallery was Friendship. This presented me with a problem - although not the one you might imagine. I have loads of pictures of my friends. Hundreds. Thousands, probably. It's just that when I started looking for them I realised that since the arrival of my sons, most photographic impulses have been limited to documenting them. And the photographs before? Well, all pre-digital, I'm afraid. And whilst we did pack a load of stuff to bring to Russia with us at the beginning of the year, unfortunately photo albums were not amongst them.

So just as I learned something from participating in last week's Gallery - namely, what's the point of being camera-shy, I'm part of this family and should be proud of showing that off - I've learned something from this weeks'. That is; it's time to start taking photos of my friends again, because they're definitely worth it.

In the meantime though, this is a photograph that Husband took when on holiday with a group of his university friends a couple of years back. It's a long story, but every 5 years or so those that can all get together and go away for a week (it's called a Lustrom - or something), without the distraction of wives, girlfriends or children, and re-establish the bonds they formed over 20 years ago.

Yep. Makes me mad with jealousy too. Can you imagine co-ordinating 15 girlfriends and persuading them they are able to leave their families for a week of fun and frolics somewhere gorgeous without a hefty proportion of them pulling out at the last minute due to an excess of guilt, other commitments or childcare issues? Probably not... And then, can you imagine managing to persuade those that DID make it to don skin-tight lycra and go out cycling for the day?

Me neither.