At Least We Don't Live In Beijing

I know I have slacked off on the blog a bit, and unfortunately with Christmas just around the corner and the fact that I am scrambling around trying to get some projects done in time for the holidays, I may not be able to post too much, but I will try. We booked our flights back to the US for December 17th, yay! Still not sure about all of our logistics but we can figure that out later. The kids don't have to be back to school until January 7th so we are flying back on January 4th. In my quest to make it start to feel like Christmas, I found a company in Krakow called Homecierge that you can hire to do just about anything for you - go shopping, take your car in for service, walk you dog, etc. etc....if only I had known about them when I first moved here! They are students and it's really cheap, so I hired them to take me shopping this past Saturday to buy and hang Christmas lights on the outside of our house. We don't even own a ladder, and I didn't have a clue as to how to attach the lights to the house anyway and Mike is never home, so it was money well spent. Christmas lights are insanely expensive here, so we just hung them on the edge of the front roof and our railing, not much but enough to get us in the Christmas spirit! We are planning to get a tree even though we are going home, because how does it feel like Christmas without an actual tree? Unfortunately it is very uncommon to find real ones here this early in December. The Polish tradition is to buy and decorate the tree on Christmas Eve, then leave it up  (along with all the Christmas lights) until early February. I have seen some trees wrapped up in netting at a Home Depot type store, so I might have to just grab one and hope for the best. Mike is away in London and Dublin this week, so the kids and I will hopefully buy it and decorate it to surprise him when he gets back.

Anyway, I know I have complained about the pollution in Krakow but the last few days the air has been super clean. I guess it's because we've had a bit of rain, but it's been really refreshing this time of year. This morning I came across this article about the pollution in Beijing and I will have to be thankful that we don't live there, every time the smog in Krakow gets to me!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/beijing-factories-shut-amid-smog-nightmare-094309888.html