Happy Christmas to all

Greetings from the lovely island of England :)

Don't you just love the Christmas season? I am a big fan of Christmas, and everything that goes along with it. I'm also excited to add new traditions to my Christmas - things that I will take with me forever to add an English taste to my holiday repertoire. Things like...

CHRISTINGLES: Christingles SHOULD be a tradition in Florida! The whole craft of a Christingle centers around an orange. They are a little way for teachers to explain different aspects of the Christmas season to children. I had the pleasure of helping kids make Christingles in Religious Education classes last week! It was a ton of fun, and it made the school smell like home (mmm, orange blossoms)!

DIFFERENT TUNES: Lots of classic Christmas carols are set to different tunes in England. Right now, I'm in LOVE with their "Away in a Manger" version. If you click on this link, click the little play icon under "listen to 4 parts." (Click here to listen) OR you can listen to this cute girl on YouTube sing it - Adorable!

CAROL SERVICES: Nothing is more amazing than a good old fashioned Christmas Carol service, complete with a spread of Yule Logs and Mince Pies!

PANTOMIMES: It's VERY traditional to attend a Pantomime during the Christmas season. All the major theaters will have one on, and all of the school children will perform them as well. Basically, a Panto is a classic story (like Peter Pan, Snow White...) that everyone knows. Then, the Panto twist is that the story is tweaked a bit, and turned into a comedic performance with major female roles played by men. There is a lot of audience participation, and usually a few sing-a-long parts as well (with well known or currently popular songs worked in to the story line). Last year, I attended a professional Panto of Peter Pan, and this year I attended one at the local school with lots of kids in it that I know from the community (they did Cinderella). It's fun, and makes me feel like I have an inside joke with England! I now know all of the audience cues, like whenever a character starts a sentence like "Oh no, I did not!" we all have to enthusiastically shout "OH YES YOU DID!" Very dorky, and VERY fun :)

CHRISTMAS CRACKERS: I can't help it...I just love them so much. It's such a simple thing, but it's so much fun for some reason! It's hard to describe the Christmas cracker, so just watch this video to understand the basic concept if you don't know it already. Inside the crackers, though, is a little trinket, a paper crown (which you of course HAVE to wear immediately), and the worst, cheeeeeeeziest jokes ever. Again, I don't know why...but I love 'em.

GERMAN MARKETS: Ahh...I saved the best for last! Apparently, Germany knows how to do Christmas. They know it SO well in fact, that they spread their Christmas joy all over European cities in the form of German Markets. Basically, they set up little stalls in major city areas that sell handicrafts from all over the world. The BEST part is the food - amazing German sausages (!!!) and tons of sweets! Chocolate covered waffles, apples stuffed with marzipan, sandwiches inside massive soft pretzels, coconut covered marshmallows, skewers of fruit dipped in chocolate, and...the crown jewel of them all...German crepes! Ooooh yes...and a giant mechanical moose singing Christmas songs in German.

Well, that's all for my list! I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas. I am VERY excited today...because I get to have a proper Christmas holiday! I'm leaving early tomorrow morning with my housemate Amy to visit Prague for a couple of nights. After that, we're flying up to Sweden (just north of Stockholm) to spend Christmas with a friend's family. Then...why just go home after that? Oh no - we're going to stop in Germany and visit some REAL German markets before heading back to Nottingham. Oh the joys of cheap travel within Europe! I know I'm going to miss my family a lot (again) this year, so I'm glad that Amy and I have found something fun to distract ourselves with!

I thought I'd post another video up here that I put together for one of the local Anglican churches. This was for their Christmas Carol service last Sunday night. I hope you enjoy! Happy Christmas everyone :)