Flying Home for Christmas!

Tonight I am flying back to England for Christmas and I really can’t wait to be home.

5 Things I’ve Learnt About Christmas in the US

Now that I’ve just had my first Chistmas in the US I thought I’d share some of the things that I’ve learnt with you all.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas this year is one of mixed emotions for me; on the one hand it’s the first one I’ve spent with my wife in the US and on the other hand it’s the first time I’ve been away from my British family at Christmas.

An Eventful Flight

I’m back in the USA now after one of the most eventful flights I’ve had to date. I’ve never been a big fan of long flights and this one started off ominously.

Enjoying England

We’ve been back in the UK for four days now and it already feels like home again.

Homeward Bound

There are plenty of movies where the protagonists are flying across the Atlantic and they arrive at the other end fresh faced and looking amazing, gleefully running up to those waiting for them with a kiss or a hug. Think of Love Actually for example.

5 UK Christmas Traditions the US Needs and 3 it Doesn’t

1. Boxing Day. In the UK  the day after Christmas Day is known as Boxing Day and it is a public holiday. Why go back to work the day after Christmas when you could lounge around with your family eating leftover turkey and chocolate and

On Being Obsessed With Snow

Remember when it snowed when you were a kid and you got super excited and sat by the window to make sure you didn’t miss any of it? I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I never grew out of that. This is mainly because it never snowed enough where I grew up in England;

Its Too Early For Snow and Santa!

It’s that time of year when autumn seems to slide inexorably into the depths of winter. The maple tree outside our kitchen is slowly becoming less yellow and more painfully skeletal by the day and the clocks going back mean its dark by the time I finish work. This wintry feeling was reinforced last week by the first snowfall of the season and by my first sighting of a mall Santa. The snow lasted about four hours before petering out; Santa will last until Christmas, if he doesn’t get drunk and attack people. Yes Miracle on 34th Street featuring the hugely missed Richard Attenborough is among my favourite Christmas films. This mall Santa looked pretty bored; as well he should because it’s over 6 bloody weeks until Christmas!

Lonely looking mall Santa; on November 2nd!

I’ve enjoyed my first autumn in the US and if there are a lot of things that I’ve missed about the UK then there are some new discoveries that make up for them, cider doughnuts being one of the best. The weather is a lot drier here too which makes for less of those miserable days when the leaves on the ground coalesce into sodden lumps. Autumn in New England is more colourful than its counterpart in the UK, mainly because New England is so much more forested. The region is rightly famous for its foliage, it’s hard to describe how beautiful the reds and yellows and greens are when outlined against a blue sky on a sunny day. If I could just encourage the locals to tone down Halloween and adopt Bonfire Night then we really would be all set, as an American would say.

There are some amazing autumn colours in New England

I’m a little nervous about the impending winter doom because I’m used to mild British winters and little snow. When it snowed on Sunday I texted a Canadian friend with a picture saying it was snowing heavily and it’s safe to say she wasn’t impressed with my definition of heavily. Next year she’s moving to Florida so she’ll soon be able to tell me I don’t know what real heat is either! I’m looking forward to playing in snow but I see a lot of slipping over on icy streets and falling into snowbanks in my future. I’m actually really excited about ice skating outside on the Frog Pond in Boston Common just not so much on frozen puddles. I’m sure Bostonians will get used to seeing a blue faced Englishman walking around the city wearing 86 layers and looking like the Michelin man. If it’s already slowing in November it’s going to be a long winter for me!

This weekend saw another first for me; my first cream tea in the USA. For those who don’t know, cream teas consist of clotted cream and jam spread on scones accompanied by a pot of tea. My sister in law had kindly given us a gift card for the upmarket Langham Hotel in Boston and we decided to try their afternoon tea. Cream teas are a big thing for me; I am from Devon in the UK where cream teas are a speciality and even putting the cream and jam on the wrong way round is considered a faux pas! The cream tea passed my test; the scones were warm and the cream and jam tasty and we had sixteen different types of tea to choose from! They even referred to the cream as Devonshire cream but as the food wasn’t served by a waitress who called everyone “my lover” I’m dubious. Have a nice Sunday everyone, I’m off to invest in another sweater. Or five…

Flying Home For Christmas (Nearly)

I’m going to start today’s post with a bit of news; my first trip back to the UK since I moved to America has been booked. We are pretty happy as the flights were very reasonable and quite close to Christmas. We will be arriving at Heathrow on the 13th and flying back on the 21st. We decided to do that week instead of Christmas week because the flights were a lot cheaper (we save $750 flying when we do) and also so that I can meet Kat’s extended family at Christmas as that is the one time every year they all get together. I’m really looking forward to being back in England to see friends and family and I’m also really keen for Kat to experience new things like Christmas Markets and British seasonal food which is quite different to what you find in the US.

What makes Christmas different in the UK to the US? A lot of things are the same; you put up a Christmas tree, write lots of cards and argue with your family. You buy people presents they don’t want and they are too polite to tell you so they pass them on to someone else. In the UK Christmas Day is followed by Boxing Day when you can relax after all the excesses of Christmas Day or spend more money on shit you don’t need because it’s on “sale”. I like Boxing Day because it’s usually a good family day where you can wake up really late, watch the football then come home and finish off all the food you didn’t eat at Christmas. It’s also a bank holiday, the UK equivalent of a federal holiday. The main thing I’m looking forward to about Christmas this year is to spend my first ever Christmas Day with Kat and the fact that Massachusetts is about 20 times more likely to have a white Christmas compared to Devon, my former home in England. As I have yet to spend a winter in the US snow still really excites me, something that my first big snow storm will probably cure me of!

Things that I want to do in the UK include visiting the excellent Bath Christmas Market, have a couple of days in London and have a cream tea. Much as I love a lot of American food (with the exception of bread, cheese and chocolate) I have really missed clotted cream and you don’t seem to be able to find it anywhere here. not even in import stores. I’m also looking forward to doing some walking (it will probably be a lot wetter but a lot warmer than Massachusetts) and visiting proper country pubs with roaring log fires. I’m aiming for Kat and I to pack our suitcases half full so we can fill them with things like tea, chocolate biscuits and Roses on our return. I saw a tin of Roses in an import store in the US once and they were about 10 times the price you pay in the UK and even though I love chocolate I can’t justify paying that much. I promise I won’t post about Christmas again for at least another 6 weeks!