Christmas Time

The Christmas season is really huge in London. People like to go all out with their celebrations. The women's clothing shops are stocked with party wear. It is really nice!

Early in the season, my friend organized a Christmas pub crawl. We all dressed festive with some of the girls actually wearing Christmas themed skirts. For work, we had a Christmas lunch. We had a 3 course meal. Afterwards we pub hoped. All in all, the celebration lasted from 2 - 11p.m.

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. This year I really wanted to capture some of my great memories of Christmas pasts from back home. One of the first things I did was buy an artificial tree. I tried getting a real one last year but it just sat in my lounge and dried out. It was a small tree and I am not really into small trees.

My 6'6"slim tree arrived and it was great fun to decorate. I rearranged the furniture in my flat. Most of my decorations were bought from the pound store. It was difficult to get to a DIY (aka Home Depot) store to buy anything because of the distance and the weather. Now I was ready to host a few gatherings.

I had two Christmas gatherings at my flat. One for my book club friends and the other for my neighbhorhood and close friends. For one of the parties, I choose a more British menu. I cooked a roast ham with green beans and au gratin potatoes. Cooking a ham is a big ordeal. You have to soak it to remove the salt, then boil it and then bake it. Nothing is ever easy here...In the end, it came out fabulous! I brought some leftovers into work for my colleague. She had some and gave it to her daughter and she loved. It was great to have my cooking validated by British people!For my second celebration, I cooked my famous chicken chipoltle dish however I made a new dessert - Italian bread pudding that I saw on the food network. It was really easy to make and again came out fabulous. We had traditional Christmas crackers with a crown hat and a joke. Elaine got to pop her first cracker. We also had a Secret Santa.


The finally to wind down the Christmas season, I attended a Christmas concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The Kings College Choir from Cambridge and the London Symphony Orchestra performed. At one point in the show, we were able to sing along with the Choir. It was lovely!
I love that I am making new traditions here and building strong friendships. I can only see every year getting better!

My first Christmas in London

This year I spent Christmas in London....Not by choice but by an unfortunate series of weather related events. A week prior to Christmas, the UK was hit with a really bad snow storm. See the pic below taken in my neighborhood of the snow a few weeks earlier that also disrupted travel. While this is not the actual snow that caused the delays, it wasn't much worse than this.
The UK is not used to getting snow nor were they prepared. Heathrow had severe delays and was operating with one runway. The travel delays had a ripple effect on Christmas travel and European travel overall.

Lately, when I've gone back to Chicago, I fly on standby because my friend works for the airline. Getting on a flight is dependent on the available open seats. Because of the delays, flights were canceled and passengers were pushed to other flights. My flight that had been wide open for the last month suddenly was oversold.

My friends and I were mentally preparing ourselves a few days prior for the possibility of spending Christmas in London. My friend Holly actually choose to stay in London so we all said that we would spend Christmas at her flat.

My other friends had delays but eventually were able to get home. Like it or not, I was spending my first Christmas in London. I have to say that it was not the worst thing. While I missed seeing my family, I didn't miss the stress of traveling from house to house and being on a schedule to visit this family and then go to that house.

For three days (Eve Eve, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day), I'd wake up late and take nice long relaxing baths. In the early evening, I would walk 10 minutes to my friend Holly's house. Our other friend Maria Ann flew in from Milan and we all celebrated together. Holly would serve me a nice glass of cava or something fizzy and we'd eat then sit and relax on the sofa watching the endless Christmas movies that were showing on the Tele. Christmas tele is really good compared to the US. They play popular movies. I watched Elf, the Grinch, Muppets Christmas Carole, Santa Clause the Movie, Fred Claus....See how much time I had on my hands.

On Christmas Eve, I cooked chicken mole and rice to keep my Mexican tradition alive. We went to Midnight Mass. It was absolutely beautiful. The mass opened with everyone holding candles and singing religious Christmas caroles. It was kind of funny to hear a Catholic sermon given in British English. After mass, we bumped into some really drunk guy on the street. Apparently, people get really pissed on Christmas Eve....Kind of like our Black Wednesday.

On Christmas Day, Maria Ann cooked homemade Italian meatballs, lasagna, and sauce. It was great. I usually have lasagna on Christmas Day so while it was different, it was still the same. Later in the evening, I came home and caught up with my family and friends.

London in general was a ghost town. Everything shuts down. There were maybe 5 shops open. Mostly convenient stores. On Christmas Eve, the supermarket was flooded with people stocking up on food for Christmas and Boxing Day. Taxis are double fare on Christmas Day. Even today, there are still not that many people in town.

I am not sure if I would want to spend next Christmas in London but it was a good test for me. It showed me that I really do love London and can be okay with being far away from my family around the holidays.

I'm back!

Gosh, I can't believe it's been this long since I last blogged. In the New Year, I resolve to be better about writing as this is what I love to do.

So where to start as I resurrect my blog.....

To sum it up, the last 5 months have been filled with more traveling, building friendships and becoming more settled in London. It took a few trips back to the States and several wonderful experiences to make me realize that I really love living in London. Life in the US suddenly seems ordinary compared to living in a foreign land. Until my curiosity wanes, I will remain in Europe. I've realized that I can come home quite often and the 8 to 9 hour flight really doesn't bother me. When I visit home, I get my fix of shopping, family and friends, and food...enough to get me through my next visit.

I am taking steps to become more settled here. I currently have a company sponsored visa. In January...(if I ever stop traveling long enough), I am going to switch my visa to one that will allow me to remain in the UK without working for my company. This gives me a bit more flexibility. I can even start my own business or do contracting work under this new type of visa.

I am working to build my credit history here. It's really, really hard to get a credit card which is a good thing. In the US, they give credit cards away like free candy....Not here. You have to have lived in one residence for at least a year. You are also unfairly judged if the previous resident had credit issues...and is nowhere to be found. Your acceptance is sometimes based on geography....Anyway, I finally got my first credit card through my bank. Lovely!

I've started investing in household items for my flat and have been thinking about shipping my personal belongs from the US. I recently bought a whisk, roasting pan, a soup pan, serving dishes, and a Pyrex casserole dish. It sounds funny but my mom's friend Betty refers to it as nesting...I think I'll wait another year to determine if I want to ship my other things. Since I'm renting, I don't want to lug this stuff from flat to flat.

Most importantly, my family and friends have been very supportive. For their own unique purposes, they would love for me to come back home. The reality is that we probably wouldn't see each other more or less. They understand that I am very happy here and we continue to make the distance work.