Dec 31 2009
I can’t honestly remember right now if we took photos when we went over on Christmas Day, but these shots were taken on the 6th of November, when we were kindly invited round for a meal. Nicole did a great job of looking after Anna whilst we were eating, and baby Sophie behaved very well. It was really good to catch up, and was a taste of things to come as they kindly had us all over again on Christmas Day.
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Dec 25 2009
Merry Christmas to anyone reading this on facebook/twitter/the blog. Hope you have a great day.
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Dec 25 2009
Happy Christmas to anyone reading this. Saw the transition of Xmas Eve to Day in with Walton and Irina.
http://twitpic.com/uzlw1
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Dec 21 2009
RT @Hg2: “Hg2 is looking forward to Christmas almost as much as the launch of its new Website – set to go live January 2010.”
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Dec 14 2009
So Christmas is drawing near, and this will be the first year we won’t be back in Britain for the celebrations. Although I have mixed feelings on the subject, our finances meant that a trip home to Anna’s Nana, Dad (Welsh word) Kav, Grandad, Nick and Roz etc. will have to wait for a few more months. On the plus side, we’re hoping to meet up with some friends over here, both at the crossover point of Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, and also for Christmas Day itself, where Anna can play with (or at least alongside 🙂 ) some other children.
Irina is planning to bake a couple more Death By Chocolate cakes, so we have no need to try importing some Mr Kipling treats. There are apparently some vodka bottles in the freezer that need finishing off, I’ve recently managed to convince myself that beer isn’t so bad after all, and Inessa seems to have a lovely meal planned. Despite the fact that three families with children will be combining forces for Christmas Day dinner, I think we’re all relaxed enough to fit in with each other’s plans and/or traditions, and as one of the men already put it, “relax, get drunk and eat too much” seems to be the order of the day anyway 🙂
Dec 10 2009
I had a welcome surprise when I woke up this morning – Irina has arranged for AlmaTV’s cable TV service to be installed on Friday! As the digital version is available in our area, we should be able to watch some of the channels with the original English audio, instead of Russian. Obviously Russian and Kazakh channels will just be in Russian or Kazakh, and I’m not sure about Eurosport/ESPN etc., but things like the Discovery Channels, National Geographic, CNN etc. should be great to catch up on.
I’ll post more details tomorrow when I know them.
Thank you Irina 🙂
Dec 06 2009
And how could I forget the lasagne, random women in Xmas attire and of course JohnA’s delicious cookies. yum.
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Dec 06 2009
At the hotel Radisson for the International Xmas bazaar. Hot dogs, waffles and Ira’s Death by Chocolate. And all for charity.
Dec 03 2009
I was speaking with a Russian man this week who was telling me how his son wanted an PlayStation 3 for Christmas. The son explained that he had behaved very well these last 12 months, and his school report had also been commendable. Given these conditions, he was hoping that Father Christmas might be able to stretch to a console this year. The father explained that Santa simply couldn’t afford to get a PS3 or similar expensive presents for every child in the world, and so to try and not be disappointed if he didn’t manage to get one for him.
The child’s response? (The parents split up a long time ago) I was hoping that Mummy’s Father Christmas could talk with your Father Christmas, and maybe get it as a joint present? A very pragmatic, cute and sensitive approach to an issue that can cause stress in other families when it comes to that time of year when you need to find Christmas presents, I thought.
So, Why am I mentioning this here? If your Santa Clauses tend to have problems coordinating matters at this busy time of year, there is help at hand. If when you ask your nearest and dearest for Christmas gift ideas they then hint that they would really like something that is out of your price range, edivvy can help you. Put simply they sell items and accept payments from multiple people. This way the cost can be cut between Mum and Dad, brothers and sisters, or for something really special, perhaps the entire extended family and close friends?
One feature I thought was quite well implemented is should you set up an event with multiple presents for someone, you can assign each gift a priority level. Should the friends and family end up being $20 short of a $850 total bill (for example), you can make sure certain gift ideas for Christmas are purchased first, so the TV could be the first choice, with the Flip camcorder being second. Any money “left over” in the pot can be sent onto the intended gift recipient as a gift card. So, check out the links, see if anything grabs your attention, and try setting up an event today.
Oct 28 2009
Irina has been ordering a few items for Anna on e-bay, but obviously concentrating on larger sizes, so we can just pick up the clothes when we next return to Britain, rather than having them all reposted to Kazakhstan. So far, we don’t seem to have suffered problems with the Royal Mail strike having delayed anything (touch wood), but according to the BBC’s article on the changing habits of British people sending postcards more and more people will be sending electronic cards this year, in an attempt to save money, and also bypass the whole ‘lost in the post’ issue that occasionally put a damper on proceedings. We sort of operate a half way policy – there is no point in us actually sending real cards from Kazakhsan to people on their birthdays/Christmas, as the post isn’t reliable (see Lucky’s video which will be embedded in an upcoming post) and the selection of available cards over here still isn’t great. So for immediate family, we use an online service that prints a personalised card and then posts it, and for everyone else, we just hope they won’t be offended if we don’t re-start the whole greeting card thing when we move back to Britain.
