November 29, 1964

Sun. Nov 29, 1964

Yesterday we had our Thanksgiving supper. I went downtown to do some shopping and then went by the meat market to get my turkey. It was all nice and brown with some nice thick gravy. The lady had it in a big ceramic bowl and she put it in the car for me. She’s a smart cookie – having a meat market two blocks form the Am Embassy she knew it was good business to learn English. She does very well but I get a kick out of the way she speaks. When I told her I’d be sure to bring her bowl back on Tues. she said “It doesn’t hurry up. We don’t use so much.” The kids enjoyed the turkey and talked about all the nice dinners we had had at Welo and Wela’s house in years past.

Today was our first day of snow. It started early in the morning and continued until around 8:00 P.M. The kids just loved it. They were in and out of the house at least four or five different times. Jimmy made a big snowman in the front yard. He was very proud of it because he made it all alone. They were discussing that big snow we had last Feb. when Jim came home that weekend. Jimmy said Welo had helped them make a snowman then but this was his first all alone. The others had gotten cold and came in the house. Luckily our front room has one wall all windows from top to bottom so P could watch them in the snow. He used some pears (that had fallen off a fruit tree in the yard) for the eyes – a carrot for the nose and a pine cone for the mouth. One stick for the arm was at a funny angle and J had a big laugh when he put in in the snowman – He told us he was signaling for a left turn.

Later on the snow got more heavily packed and the kids took a sled that was in the basement for sledding down the many fields and hills around here.

Tonight we went to the first practice for Christmas caroling. There was a large group of people at one of the Embassy people’s home. We had a nice practice and then they had coffee and different desserts – one of which was homemade apple pie – Just delicious! I haven’t seen any pies in the bakeries here.

Our babysitter tonight is a darling girl who lives in the house right behind us. She goes to the Univ. in Bern – about 5 miles from here. She’s been riding her bike to school but she said tomorrow she’ll take the tram because of the snow. She speaks very little English and you should see how slowly and carefully B. talks to her.

Love
Jim and Dina