In which the kids have a day off of school and we celebrate my birthday

Last Friday, Sapphire and Ezio brought home notes in their black notebooks (used for communications between home and school) to the effect that their would be a teacher's strike at their school the following Tuesday. As it turned out, there was a national teachers' strike, but not all of the schools participated, and so Cherry did indeed have school on Tuesday morning.

So, after Sapphire and I had dropped her off (Ezio went for a walk with Blaise) , Sapphire, Ezio and I headed off to the American Library to get some new reading material. W had hoped to get home in time to pick Cherry up from school, but missed the RER that we needed to do so, and arrived home around 12:05, to see a sobbing Cherry. Evidently, she had burst into tears at the sight of Blaise coming to pick her up probably in part because she was expecting me, and in part because she realized that the fact that i wasn't there meant that I had gone somewhere with Sapphire and Ezio and without her. Once she had calmed down and we had eaten lunch, Sapphire, Cherry and I headed over to the Auchan with the goal of purchasing a (small) Christmas tree and trimmings for under 20€.

We got the following:
- one pale blue Christmas tree, 90 cm tall
- two sets of 20 multicolored Christmas lights
- two meters of silver tinsel with stars
- six silver balls
- six blue balls
- six blue balls with silver glitter.
All for the grand total of 16.35€, which I was able to pay for entirely with the credits that I had earned buying Auchan products. (On a return trip to buy groceries later that day, I added 3 Advent calendars.)

Wednesday was my birthday. I am once again a square, and the ages of all three of my children evenly divide mine. Blaise had his visite medicale (finally. More about that in a subsequent post.) While he was gone, the kids and I spent a little bit of time tidying the living room, and then set up the Christmas tree on a small table (think TV tray table) in front of the patio doors. Evidently, if you buy the Christmas ornaments that come 6 for 0.80€ you are expected to put the strings in yourself. Sapphire folded an origami star for the top of the tree out of yellow paper, and we commenced the job of asking Cherry to please leave the tree alone every 10 minutes. On the plus side, the au rabais (French for "el cheapo") Christmas ornaments are also made of plastic, so it's not like their likely to break.

After an early dinner, we headed into Paris to look at the lights and window displays at the Grands Magasins (big department stores) along Boulevard Haussman. They were very beautiful, with lots of animated marionettes and sparkles. The animated windows had little boardwalks set up in front of them to allow even the smallest children to see. Afterward, we headed up to the toy department at Galleries Lafayette, and looked at Legos and stuffed animals and Polly Pockets.