Communion

Today was the party for the Communion of my little host sister, Philippine. I want to say it's the First Communion, but apparently in Belgium, people do two communion ceremonies like that, a little and a big. The little one is when you're about 7, like in the States, and the big is when you're around 12, like Philippine. Anyways, the mass in next Sunday, but we had the party at the house today. Which meant the whole family was coming, a mass of people I didn't know.

So I got up this morning with the sun, nice and early, to hear screaming downstairs and outside. Of course, I was only half awake so I don't know what the screaming was about. But anyways, I started to get ready and then Philippine came into my room and asked if I would do her hair. It was such a cute moment, us both sitting on my bed, me putting pretty curls into her hair. There were people in and out of my room all morning, but eventually I managed to get myself ready and join everyone downstairs as people started arriving. We all looked smashingly beautiful (like my little British addition there?) and took pictures as we waited for everyone to arrive.

That is when the flood of bisous and new people started. Family member after family member, friend after friend, all introducing themselves and me saying over and over that I was the American living in the house. Of course, I ended up spending my time with Manon and Aymeric and Talia once they came. We started off the afternoon with, of course, the appetizers, just chips and such accompanied, like always, by champagne. And this lasted for a while... Then it was food time. The family had decided to cater the party, and apparently there had been a portion problem that morning and originally there wasn't enough food. But in the end everything worked out and there was plenty of food. It was a buffet of different salads and rices and smoked salmon. All the food was very good and I ate plenty of it. For dessert, we had an ice cream cake that we covered in either chocolate or fruit sauce. Of course, me being me, I took both. I think I was the only person out of the 35 that were there that did that... But it was delicious. Géraldine joined us after the meal and we spent the rest of the afternoon just talking and taking pictures, eventually eating more when we brought out the pies and the cookies that I made last night. Of course. Always food in this house.

Eventually, the crowd died away and we started cleaning up from the party, stacking chairs and clearing tables. Once that was all finished I headed up to my room to recover and I'm sorry to say, I've been on the computer since... Not even hungry enough to go back downstairs to eat dinner. But nobody did, so that's no big deal. We all ate so much at lunch. I couldn't imagine eating another full meal tonight. Anyways, I should be getting to bed. I, lucky me, have school tomorrow. Bonne nuit !