On Christmas Eve the family went for dinner at the Duvoisin, Rachel and Christian and their 3 children were our hosts and we talked and played the Lotto for hours. We had so much fun that we completely forgot to go to church at 11pm as planned.

Then a few days later I went to Fabien for a movie night...

On Saturday, we celebrated Christmas with everyone on my father's side, we stayed in Coffrane but the dinner took place at the Bueche. It was great to see them all again, of course baby Camille was there too and for the first time in YEARS Santa Claus visited us. In fact, Nicolas was in disguise and it seems Camille loved that (I'll add a picture of that in the Family album). After dinner we all played bingo for hours, that's the Christmas tradition in our family, the prizes are brought by everyone, little cheap prizes that we wrap in newspapers paper.

On Sunday, we celebrated again, the dinner took place at my godparents and I have to say my godmother is a great cooker. It is always a pleasure to visit them for dinner, Christmas or not. Well, since her birthday, I knew that she would have liked a mp3 player so I offered  her and my godfather one for Christmas.

Because today is my last day, this week has been kind of exhausting for me. I want to leave with the whole handover completed, all things I do documented and everyone informed of the next steps. I am preparing my way out since the start of the month, I want to make sure everything is fine before I leave. I went to the osteopath on Tuesday because my back, neck and shoulders were hurting, that's what always happens when I am under pressure. He said it was quite bad and that I should really take some rest asap.

I am in Zurich since Wednesday, to finish up the handover, thanks to Silja everything went fine and on Thursday evening we had the end of the year party and the cream cake. The party was fun, the cream cakers were good, the dinner was nice dinner and we danced until 4am.

On Friday, I went back to Geneva in the afternoon, I still had to empty my clear my desk and I was invited to the last drink of the year that Tulika organized so I could say goodbye to everyone. It was a great evening.

We celebrated the first Christmas party in Coffrane with my mother's side of the family. As it was supposed to take place in Gland at Diana and Adrien's (DnA that's how they call themselves now), they brought all the food, cooked it, set the table, prepared the drinks and snacks, handled the whole day. It gave my mother a break since she has a hernia again. I like seeing my cousins, aunt and uncle from Geneva, we don't meet a lot during the year, just about once or twice usually including Christmas.

For the end of the year party of the MP Geneva office we went to a castle in France. Everyone was dressed up for the occasion. A gift exchange was organized, we all picked a name in a box and had to bring a present for that person, I brought champagne glasses for a new colleague and received a very big cup-style bowl from one of the receptionists. The evening was very nice but missing a little more animation.

Today I had a talk with my Director and had to accept to leave the company. It seems Michael Page is restructuring IT, the main system is going to change and there won't be any more projects per country but global projects for all, so the IT Project Leader (me) is not needed any more next year. They are letting me go. My last working day will be Dec. 21st and I will still be paid in January 2008.

After dancing the whole night, I drove all the way to Coffrane and slept just about 4 hours. Today, Adrien invited the whole family and the grandmas for lunch, supposedly to celebrate Diana's birthday... And it happened... He said he loved her and the fact that she has been part of the family for the past 3 years, he announced that she will really be part of the family next year as they are now engaged. My mum, my sister and I had tears in our eyes and we congratulated them warmly. Diana is a sweet person and it's a pleasure to think of her as a new sister. They asked the grandmas not to tell anyone, but my father's mother is not able to hold her tongue, she admitted, and this meant we have to tell Mary-Claude, Pierre-Alain, Rachel, Alexandre and Nicolas asap. I went to see them with Adrien and Diana after lunch, especially since I hadn't seen baby Camille for 1.5 months.

As every year, the first Saturday of December, I was invited to the Sagittarius birthday party. Yves and Ralph always celebrate their birthday with a big party, lots of guests and music to dance the whole night long. That was a great party as usual and it felt good to dance, I really needed that since I had learnt on Friday afternoon from my director that the company won't need me any more next year. Something I haven't told my family yet.