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| Unreal cheese |
We also checked out the Christmas market in Bath when Victoria's brother Peter was in town visiting. The largest of the Christmas markets in SW England, it surrounds the Cathedral and nearby environs. Overall though, a Christmas market is a Christmas market. Roasting chestnuts, mulled wine, arts, crafts, delicious food. I think next year we may try and go to Poland or Germany for the Christmas markets.
Another staple is the workplace Christmas Do. The restaurants started posting their Christmas menus about the time we arrived in August. If you want to eat at a restaurant between today and the 27th, you'd better have made a reservation a couple months ago. (I foolishly dragged my family into a pub after church this morning hoping to be able to catch a traditional Sunday roast only to be looked at like I had three heads. The gets us into the bookings and queueing culture here, but that's for another post.) All December if you walk into a pub or restaurant, you'll see tables filled with people wearing their Christmas cracker crowns, telling bad jokes, enjoying a tipple and some good food with friends and coworkers. The Christmas menus are generally a three course affair. A starter (soup, terrine, prawn cocktail, etc.), main (turkey, stuffing, "roasties", a "bit of veg", or perhaps some other roast, beef or gammon), and a dessert (Christmas Pudding (i.e. "pud") being the most traditional), and perhaps some mince pies afterwards. There were a number of Christmas Do-s I got to attend. The first was at the Pittville Pump Room. Cheltenham is an old Victorian spa town where people would come to "take the waters" and cure what ailed them. The Pump Room, as you can probably guess, pumped out one of the aquifers and still works. I had some of the water myself. This was the Americans hosting our British counterparts. The American Christmas Do was held at the Queen's Hotel (one of the poshest hotels in town.) Everyone gets seriously dolled up for this one. Lots of eating, drinking, dancing (Victoria bullying husband onto the dance floor.)
My British Christmas Do (with my British coworkers) was the one I was most apprehensive about (unnecessarily as it turned out.) I'd be told by loads of different people to be careful, take it easy, don't try and keep up, etc. The day starts at work obviously. Starting around 10, the mince pies and brandy come out (not for me though.) Lunch started at 12 at a local wedding venue. At 3 we head into town to the pubs and the crawl commences. I peeled off four pubs later around 11pm and headed home. Not the first, not the last, but a respectable showing, if I may.
As an aside, the absolute best Christmas drink EVER comes from our friends to the North, the Canadians. It's called Moose Milk and you can find a recipe here. Do exercise appropriate caution with this one. You're not Canadian. Unless you are, in which case, Thank You!
I finished up at work for the year Thursday. Last night I got the presents wrapped while watching Christmas movies (Christmas Carol, Love Actually, Die Hard, It's A Wonderful Life) and enjoying a few fingers of Scotch. We made it to Christmas mass this morning (which actually technically was the last mass of Advent and not Christmas mass, but we're counting it anyway. Sorry, Jesus, but happy birthday!)
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| I was asked to help with the collection at mass. |
Supplies have been procured (some as late as this morning when Lincoln announced he wanted a turkey dinner on Christmas Eve instead of the traditional Robb Hamburger-On-Toast) and it's on to making as Merry as we can and keeping Christmas as well as we can, trying new traditions, celebrating with new friends, while desperately missing traditions, friends, and family back home. From the Robb's here in the UK, we wish you and yours a truly Merry Christmas, Peace, and Love!
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