Christmas Season in England

We are back from a WONDERFUL Christmas break in the states with our family and friends.  I apologize for taking so long to post on here.  I was not able to upload pictures from our computer.  We had to download a new web browser, and now everything seems to be working fine.

Most friends and family I talked to are interested in how things are different over here. I hope to keep my blog updated often and post about life here in England (with a few posts about the kids to keep the grandparents happy of course.)

Let me tell you about the Christmas season here in England.  We found that most holidays are celebrated in different ways here than in the U.S.  Christmas, however, was quite similar.  Decorations in store windows,  Christmas lights on houses, inflatable Santas on front lawns, the same Christmas carols on the radio, nativity plays performed at schools and lots of cookies and chocolate.  They refer to Santa as Father Christmas, and they usually say "Happy Christmas" where we say, "Merry Christmas".  Children here exchange small Christmas cards.  It reminds me of Valentine's, but they do not do those here.  No one told us that kids usually give a card to everyone in their class.  We picked up on it after day 3 of receiving cards in their backpacks.  Overall, the Christmas season here was a lot like in the states.  There was a great deal of focus on the "reason for the season", the birth of Jesus!

 

Visiting with Father Christmas at their school Advent Fayre

They were a bit suspicious about this "Santa", but happy to receive a present from him.

 

Amelia was an angel in their "Wriggly Nativity" at school.

Dylan was a cow in the "Wriggly Nativity". 

Kids in plays + singing and dancing always = ADORABLE!

Amelia's class photo.  She is the 2nd angel on the left.

 

Dylan's class photo.  He is the cow in the front row, 4th from left.

Did I decorate for Christmas even though we were not going to be here?  You bet I did!  I love decorating for the holidays.  We put up the tree, hung the stockings and baked Christmas cookies.  Oh, and we may have helped to spread a new tradition here.  No one here knew about the Elf on the Shelf.  Our kids are SO into our elf, Herbie.  Eric brought one back for a friend to introduce to her kids.  Dylan had friends asking their mums why they did not have an elf at their house.  You can order the Elf on the Shelf set on Amazon.co.uk, but it costs about $45.00.  I will be curious to see if that tradition spreads to the U.K. in the future.

 This was the day our boiler went out, which meant we had no heat.  

The girls had their layers on to stay warm.

Cora was dancing and shaking the bells to "Jingle Bells".

 

Some of the Christmas cookies we decorated.

This was a tiny rainbow one afternoon when I was waiting for Dylan to get out of school.

Eric worked in the states for 2 weeks in December.  These are some American goodies, which we cannot get in England, he brought back for us!  Bisquick, Cheez-its, Graham Crackers, Kraft Mac 'n Cheese, Crystal Light, Kids' Cliff Bars, Kids' vitamins, Ziploc bags, Hershey Kisses, Peanut Butter M&M's, Starburst and Sweethearts.