Daycare Yuletide-Ball
Bjarki woke up this morning feeling a lot more energetic than yesterday, and immediately asked “Can I go to the Yuletide-ball today?”. I didn’t have the heart to say no, figuring that a two hour trip out of the house might do everybody a world of good.
Him and me took it easy this morning though, lounged in bed with our good friend YouTube, while Anna was off watching Spirited Away in her final English class of this season. We are thankful for good friends who were kind enough to come pick her up for class, and then drop her off afterwards! 🙂
We arrived at the ball around 2 pm, where a number of people had already arrived, and were walking around the Christmas tree led in song by a guy with a guitar and lyrics on his iPad. (You need to click on the Read more to see all the pics.)
People walking around the tree, and singing classic Christmas songs.
Anna and Bjarki with their cousin Þórarinn Víkingur (son of Steinunn, sister of Finnur) who goes to the same daycare as Bjarki.
Bjarki didn’t have a lot of stamina for tree-walking (he wasn’t exactly ‘well’), so he plonked himself down by Einar and Þórarinn Víkingur, and nibbled on ginger snaps (piparkökur) and drank some juice. The guitar guy can be seen in the background.
Quite a lot of people showed up, which was great! (I’m on the organization committee…)
Besides the ginger snaps, there were drinks galore for everybody! 🙂
Another member of the organization committee with her wee one. 🙂
At 2:30 pm, a couple of santas showed up!
They horsed around for a bit (Gangnam Style!)…
… to the amusement of many…
… and they kept the kids’ attention, although I think Anna found their jokes funnier than Bjarki did.
Then it was time to walk around the tree some more, with the santas butchering song-names left and right.
After the singing, the santas sat down to distribute some clementines to the kids, and the parents shot photos.
Þórarinn Víkingur wasn’t entirely on board with approaching the guys in the funny clothes!
Anna telling Steinunn something terribly amusing!
Bjarki was pretty petrified of the santas, but I did manage to convince him to sit for a photo or two. Once he’d come in close contact with them, they were suddenly all right!
The santas left shortly thereafter, as well as most of the families, but the guitar-guy stayed on to play some more songs. The kids that also remained made good use of the dance-floor, and ran around for a bit. (Bjarki ran around too, and probably overdid it, because he started coughing like mad. Oh dear.)
As the last people left, the organizers, and a couple of the daycare-staff that were there started cleaning up, and we were all done by 4 pm!
After we got home, I excavated our Christmas lights and managed to install them in two windows. After a wee breather I found energy somewhere to cook dinner, and then it was time to get the kids to bed. Bjarki still felt warm, so I took his temperature: 38°C/100.4°F, which isn’t terrible, but not fantastic either. Hopefully he’ll be fever-free tomorrow, so he can go to daycare on Monday!
P.s. On the words Yule vs. Christmas: ‘Christmas’ in Icelandic is ‘jól’ or ‘yule’. I therefore prefer to use the word yule, because a) it’s closer to the Icelandic word, and b) because it’s less religious. But I will occasionally also use ‘Christmas’, or ‘Xmas’ if I’m feeling particularly smarmy.
