Surely you're also counting the days, right?

Of course I'm talking about Christmas. Not in its commercial sense, nor in its religious one. To me, Christmas equals family(particularly after my first four months away from home) and all the best smells in the world (snow, the tree, Romanian "cozonac" and spiced wine). Oh and the Coca Cola commercials! Always the Coca Cola commercials, they practically announce Christmas.

Photo source

It feels surreal that two weeks from today I'll be on the train between Budapest and my hometown (yes the connections are so bad that I fly into another country thankyouverymuch) and dreaming of seeing my parents and my dog! My beautiful lovely boy who misses me so much, my mom tells me he howls of loneliness. 

This is the infamous cozonac. I was never even a fan, really, but it has a totally different appeal when I'm away from home and thinking of it as the symbol that it is.

Spiced/mulled wine or Gluhwein or "Vin fiert" in Romanian is a staple of all the Christmas visits between friends and family and it's a winter "thing" in our favourite bar back home. 

Photo source

Snow. Oh, snow. I loved snow devotedly my entire life, and always mourned its relative scarcity. Then last year happened, and this is what it looked like most of the season. I want it so bad to snow when I go home, because there are slim chances of it in miserable-weather Brussels.

Ahh, there. I've managed to get some of the I-heart-winter energy out of my system.

P.S. I loved the feedback from my Karlie Kloss post. I truly respect everyone's opinions and some of the comments were thought-provoking. I've been having second thoughts about it, but the truth is I stand by  what I said. However, my general attitude in that post wasn't very Christmassy at all so a new post to head the blog was in order! Oh, and I love you guys for the continued love you show my blog, even if I don't have the time to rrreally be on top of it.

Do you celebrate Christmas? What does it mean to you?