Christmas Holidays in England

Once I was home from Germany, all eyes were focused on Sunday...Christmas day!  Steve actually had to go out of town for business from the 21st to the 22nd, so that gave the kids and I some time to get shopping for Daddy completed.  I even was able to get wrapping done.  But as it is the school "hols" (short for holidays in UK speak), I felt compelled to get out of the house and "do" something.  The kids voted on going to the Tower of London.  Never one to shy away from a sightseeing adventure, I said sure and we grabbed our things (camera, snacks, backpack and internet confirmation of prepurchased tickets) and headed for the train.

We took the train into London Waterloo and two tubes to Tower Hill.  It was surprisingly not crowded.  We were able to move easily through the tower and hear costumed interpreters.  We were soon ready for some lunch and since I had purchased a membership to the royal palaces, we were able to freely leave the Tower and look outside for lunch.  We stumbled on a hole in the wall of a pizza place and managed to get pizza and drinks for the four of us for 13 pounds!  A bargain in London...or anywhere in the UK and almost a fourth of the cost of the train tickets into the city.  On our way back into the Tower we saw a sign for a free iphone app called Escape from the Tower and they even had a wi-fi hotspot right there for downloading.  A few moments later and we were armed with technology to make this visit more interactive and exciting (and don't tell the kids...educational).  Other than having to turn up the volume on my iphone to the highest level and worrying that we might be disturbing the other visitors, it's a great app.  Truth be told, the other visitors are all holding those audio wands up to their ears and listening to some tour guide and for the groups around Wardens giving tours, we would move away to be considerate.  The App has you choose one of four characters to save from the tower.  It then takes you to different places in the tower to tell you the story of the escapee as you find the tools to help him escape.  As you go, you earn coins and can go on to free the other characters.  We freed two and know we will end up going back so will vow to aid the other two on our future visit!  Two prisoners that could not be saved were the two little princes and their story is highlighted in the app and then in one part of the tower.  Katie seemed particularly disturbed by this story.  After a fun day in London, we were home in time to make dinner.

Friday and Saturday were spent baking cookies and cleaning the house.  I am always fearful that Santa won't leave me any presents if the house isn't picked up and it will look bad in the morning photos too.  We had dinner reservations for 5pm at a chain restaurant called Frankie and Benny's: New York Italian Bar and Restuarant.  We knew the kids would all find something that they liked to eat here!  After dinner we walked over to the chuch we have been visited a few times for their 6:30 carol service.  This was the latest service of the evening at this church.

Opening the traditional Christmas Crackers!

When we got to church people were gathering in the fellowship area and drinking mulled wine!  After wine at dinner, I was thinking I might fall asleep during the service if I had too much mulled wine before.  The service was nice although the kids didn't like having to keep getting up and down to sing another song.  What I found interesting was that we sang 8 carols before we got to one that I had heard before!  The 9th hymn was a Charles Wesley Hymn, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and since it is a Methodist church, you would expect that at least that would be sung.  (For those of you who are not Methodist, John Wesley is the founder of Methodism and his brother, Charles, wrote many hymns that are common to all Christians.)  Silent Night and O Come All Ye Faithful followed.   We were home with plenty of time to relax over brownie sundaes for dessert and watch The Muppets Christmas Carol before saying good bye to our Elf on the Shelf, putting out cookies for Santa, and sprinkling reindeer food on the driveway. 

Christmas morning was the traditional craziness of presents.  Santa did in fact find us at our new address in England.  Our tradition the past several years has been to go to the movies on Christmas day, but I had investigated a few weeks earlier and learned that the theater would be closed.  Oh, well, it's a good thing the family got some new games for the entertainment systems for Christmas.  It was just the five of us until we managed to Skype family back home. 

Santa Was Here!

No opening presents until Mom gets the obligatory snapshot.

Monday was Boxing Day in the UK.  Besides being the crazy shopping day it is in the US, it is a holiday for most companies.  We decided to partake in another one of the British holiday traditions by going to a "Panto."  A Panto is short for Christmas Pantomime and has nothing to do with "mimes!"  It is when the Brits take a traditional story and spoof it up a bit and get the audience involved in the truly British comedy way.  We saw a Peter Pan Panto.  We "booed" whenever Captain Hook appeared.  We got up and sang along to the crazy 12 gifts of Christmas (you should see what the captain gave his crew!).  We had fun keeping up with the Brits and plan to keep Panto in our plans for next year.  After the show we were treated to an all American dinner of Skyline Chili at the home of friends who live around the corner from the theater.  It actually made a great end to the holiday celebrating!

Getting ready for the Panto!

We hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas and know that our house is open if you feel like celebrating the holidays next year in a British way!