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.

 
 

Another Castle Visit

I want to share a few pictures from another castle we visited on Dec. 1st.  This was the best castle we have been to so far.  This is Cardiff Castle in Wales.  Our kids loved exploring the castle grounds.  They asked lots of questions, and it was a real learning experience for us all.  This castle had a "Family Trail" for the kids to look for certain things as we walked around the castle house.  We are trying to enjoy these unique experiences while we are here. 

Walking in Cardiff, Wales.  Shopping and restaurants to the left and a castle to the right. 

Not something you see everyday.

Cardiff Castle entrance

Entering the grounds

Hee hee

The house...truly amazing in person

Walking up to Norman Keep

Looking out over the moat

View from above 

I really was there too!

The dining room inside the house

The ceilings were incredibly ornate in every room.

Eric was explaining how the catapult worked

Having fun with a little dress up

Perfect for our Christmas card

Halloween the British Way

As we are finding with most holidays here, Halloween was not as big of a celebration as it is in the U.S.  Apparently it is getting bigger here, but I was not impressed.  When October rolls around, I like to put out the Halloween decorations and start thinking about costumes for trick-or-treating.  When I started mentioning Halloween to other mums, some of them told me their children do not dress up or trick-or-treat.  When I looked in the stores, I couldn't get over the tiny amount of space given for Halloween costumes, decorations and candy.  I guess we just like to party in the U.S. because each holiday pretty much takes over the grocery stores and Target!  Not here.  It is much smaller and simpler, which is the British way according to us.  Part of the reason may be that they do not have the space to store such items.  Also, many people here do not spend their money on unessential things like holiday decorations.   

Halloween costumes here are very traditional.  They stick with scary things such as witches, skeletons, Dracula, etc.  There were not aisles of Disney princesses and Ninja Turtles.  

This is the Halloween section at our local market.

This is the Halloween section at the local superstore/grocery store.

You could be a skeleton with a cape or a skeleton with a tutu...interesting.

Yep, that was it!  A few bakeries in town had some Halloween cookies or cupcakes, but there were not many decorations around town.  I could not find Halloween cards to mail to family, so we made our own cards.  It actually saved us a lot of money keeping it simple.  

My kids decided they wanted to be Peter Pan and Wendy, and they wanted Cora to be Tinkerbell.  I was excited that they would all 3 coordinate, and I was ready for the challenge to make their costumes.  I got on Pinterest and found ideas for their costumes.  The biggest challenge for me was finding the materials I needed to make the costumes.  Boy did I ever miss having a Hobby Lobby down the street!  The few stores that sell fabric had very poor choices, so I had to settle with what I could find and make the best of it. 

Peter Pan's costume was made out of fleece.  The belt and sword were made out of felt. 

Wendy's dress was made out of a crushed velvet knit fabric.

I kept Tinkerbell pretty simple since I couldn't find the right fabrics.  She went right for the white puff balls on her feet.  Yes, I was sewing them back on just minutes before this picture.

Eric took Dylan and Amelia trick-or-treating.  He said there were actually quite a lot of children out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  We only had a few come to our house.  Our house sits back behind other houses, so many people did not come down our long driveway.  By long, I mean "regular length U.S. driveway".  They are used to a driveway being the length of one small vehicle.

The candy here is different too.  We did have some mini Twix bars.  We miss U.S. candy!

Dylan and Amelia had a goal of collecting ten pieces of candy each.  Thankfully they did just in time for the downpour of rain.  It is England after all.  They came back soaked, but excited about their ten treats.  That was it.  I worked hard on those costumes, and it was all over in those few short hours.  Oh, and no one else even saw their costumes since they were wearing raincoats with their hoods up.  I wish we would've had a Halloween party or parade for the kids to wear their costumes again.  Hopefully they will use them to play pretend. 

I missed going to Boo at the Zoo with our good friends.  I missed going on hayrides and having costume parties.  I missed going to a pumpkin patch.  Halloween felt different this year.  The important thing is that Dylan and Amelia enjoyed dressing up and had a great time. 

Some Things Never Change

One thing that will probably never change is my husband's love for motocross.  Believe it or not, he left his dirt bike back in the states.  We did, however, bring Dylan's dirt bike here to England.  Motorcycles and dirt are not really my cup of tea, but Eric is quite passionate about the sport.  Dylan seems to really enjoy his bike as well.  He knows most of the professional rider's names, and he likes to watch the races on TV with Daddy.  There are a few local dirt tracks nearby.  When it is not raining, Dylan and Eric like to go to the track on the weekends.

Dylan learned to ride his dirt bike with training wheels (which they call "stabilizers" here).  He quickly learned how to ride without the training wheels, and he is getting more confident on the bike.  He was proud to tell me he passed other kids on the track! 

When Amelia turned 4 in August, Eric had ants in his pants about getting her on the dirt bike.  WHAT?!  She is my little princess!  She does not have quite the finesse with sports, but she really wanted to give it a try.  With the training wheels on, she rode around the backyard a few times.  Eric got his workout running alongside of her.  Let's just say, she has a lot of learning to do!

Dylan riding in the backyard.  Sorry neighbors.

Eric and Dylan did get the chance to attend the Motocross Gran Prix here in England back in August. It was probably the best weather weekend we had all year.

Dylan in front of Zach Osborne's pit. Zach is the lone American competing in the GP's. Dylan was excited to cheer for him.

Watching the start of the 11 & 12 year old kids race.