How wonderful! That's a great response to your having given one of the greatest gifts of all - Inspiration.

You are welcome ... just don't ask how I met my wife. ;)

Not in for the GA, but Thank You skimmie and PaterAlf for continuing this again this year and please let the wife and I know if you'd like a little elf-help. :)

That's a wonderful story and a very rare gift. I work as a social worker and educator for nearly 20 years now and even in my profession it doesn't happen really often that you meet people again after years and they tell you that what you did or told them changed their life. Whenever that happens it feels like the best thing in the world, because you realize your work really means something (even if it very often doesn't feel that way).

And you really must have made an impression, if she even went to the time and and effort to figure out where you work now and came by to say thank you after eleven years!

Best Christmas story!
That is very good to know! Thank you!

Yeah, I know :) I just posted a random video to show the idea. In reality I usually bring three lasers so that we can experiment and measure what is the maximum distance that it can still pop a balloon depending on laser power and wavelength. For IR laser you can also show how easily its power can be absorbed by water.

we just started to decorate home. :D

Oh yes!

Yeah, that's pretty shocking indeed! She told me that first she contacted the orphanage and apparently they kept records of such events so she got my name. Then she simply used Web of Science and found my current location. Initially she wanted to send a letter but as it turned out we live in the same city so she visited me instead.
Yes, but I was not even aware of it back then :) I just wanted to do something nice I never thought that it would have such an impact on somebody. My mind is still blown :D
And they say that such things only happens in movies :D

I also got an early Christmas gift: A new cheese store opened right around the corner.

Yeah, I know that's by far not as amazing as Ghorpm's story. But what can I say, I really like cheese. :D

Thanks.
It's sad, when interest in these things gets lost and they have mostly been passed down by storytelling/teaching, because then, those who want to learn (about) them, might not be able to find someone to tell/teach them and there is no (or next to no) written information of some kind about those things.
But at least there are pictues of Pajaki, so if one really wants to start "their own Pajaki-tradition" (without someone telling/teaching them), they could try their hand at recreating one of those or maybe even create their very own based on common ground between all of those designs. :-)

That's a nice read.

Sadly I don't really have anything as good to write here. There are two things I remember though.
First, when I was child in the advent everyday we were going to church (it was called roraty - dunno about English name), the thing was, every year we were making special lantern that we carried with us, often out of cardboard (but some parents were more creative :P), this days you can buy them easy but back then (from what I remember) you had to make them yourself. Obviously the fun part was that it was always dark outside when we were going, and at the church the lights was off at the beginning, and the lantern where obviously glowing. :)

The other thing I remember was that when my grandma was still alive every year we put at her house Christmas stable (kind of common I know), the figures was quite old and it was fun to do... this days we somehow we don't do this anymore (well, no kids around anymore) but I still have them somewhere. :) Ah... this were good times (apart of that small tradition that made me sick from nerves every year). :P

Many years ago, I was seriously thinking about emigrating from the Netherlands to New Zealand (where I'd lived for a year). The lack of proper cheese stores and high quality cheese (compared to the Netherlands, where there's multiple dedicated cheese stores in even small towns) was one of the (admittedly many) considerations that made me decide not to go through with it.

(By which I mean to say: I understand your happiness!) :)

Too bad the Internet doesn't have a way to physically send cheese over it, because then you could put it in people's stockings. ;)

The best decoration I find for Christmas is the color RED.

I make sure that almost everything in my house is colored red (Santa's color).

From red sofa covers, to red blinders sticking to the windows, to red toilet paper, to red clothes, to red shoes, to red slippers, to a reddish Christmas tree, to reddish apple pie, I try to make everything in the house red.
After all red is the color most associated with Christmas.

If you like the color red that much, you must be secretly Chinese. (joking)