Christmas, 2009

Christmas… for both of us our first time away from home at Christmas, and subsequently our first Christmas together. I was expecting it to be hard, perhaps even depressing, but David reasoned early on that we should just have as much fun as possible. After all, you can’t go through life being married and spending every holiday depressed with your spouse, right?

Christmas Eve Day I had to work, but we had a huge appie & dessert buffet in our department, so I mostly ate junkfood all day and then was sent home early by my boss’ boss. Rather than feel stressed over having to cook dinner or do dishes before heading to Mass, we went out for dinner to the Boathouse and filled up on hunter’s chicken and beer/cider. Mass was quiet, as most of the parishioners are out of town, but nice and very not North American, by which I mean that all the hymns were different than the ones we normally sing. After Mass we came home and watched It’s a Wonderful Life, since we’re used to going to a Christmas Eve party and this year had none to attend.

On Christmas Day we had a blast. Thanks to the generosity of certain people we had stocking stuffers and presents like we would’ve had back home. Thanks to my mum sending us a surprise care package, we had surprises on Christmas morning that neither of us knew about. We spent a relaxing morning opening gifts and made a nice Christmas breakfast. We spent the afternoon slowly preparing for Christmas dinner, and then we spent the evening in the company of one of our Irish friends who was in town for the holidays. David roasted a pheasant, I made a ham, and our friend brought over Christmas pudding and mulled wine. The hours passed quickly and it was midnight before we knew it!

I’m used to spending boxing day having a huge family dinner and spending time visiting, but of course that could not be the case this year. So instead we slept in, read for a bit, and eventually wandered downtown where we picked up steak & ale pasties before heading to the theatre to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. The movies was excellent, and it was fun eaten pasties snuck into the theatre. After the movie hit up an open pub for pints.

Two more days of vacation for me! Today we went to an early Mass and then spent the morning browsing shops along Trinity Street before grabbing lunch and groceries. Tomorrow one of David’s mum’s close friends from Jamaica is coming over for lunch. In preparation for this we’ve procured a fancy looking paté and a wedge of brie which in Canada would easily cost $6, and here cost a mere 99p. Did I mention that cheese is cheap in England? I love this country!

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Yes I miss seeing my family, and I could dwell on missing Christmas Eve & Christmas morning at home. To be honest, however, I am just grateful that I have a family worth missing, and that I have a wonderful man who worked so hard to ensure that my first Christmas away from home would be a happy one. If anything, my heart is overflowing with gratitude this year for all the blessings in my life.

Merry Christmas!

wedding rambles and a bit of christmas chatter

Haven’t done as much wedding stuff as I’d wanted to this past week, namely because I am at one of those “waiting for everyone to get back to me” stages. Also in a “waiting for my job to start” stage, because until then I don’t want to court the idea of things like spending money! We are one step closer to our marriage prep, which is nice—at our church they do it one on one, instead of as a group, so we just need to email the contact name we were given and see if he has time for us. So that is good, and David will be doing that today.

On the Save the Date front, free postcards turned out to be not quite free. Excited as I get about things like that, I like to do my research as I believe that very little in this world is actually free. And although I was willing to brush aside complaints about quality, I read one too many warnings about a semi-legal form of credit card theft to trust my details to the company. So it is back to the drawing board, literally—just waiting for some printers to get back to me with quotes before we decide if our postcards are going to be printed as postcards or printed as photos! And we still need to ask someone to design them... ahem. But as I see it, there’s no great loss without some small gain, and having to rethink options usually leads to a better solution. So other than being annoyed last week that you just can’t trust people, or at least internet businesses, that’s that.

One thing that is a weight off my mind is a veil. There is nothing worse than falling in love with a veil and then having to worry that it won’t work. One of my mum’s friends gave me the very kind gift of her wedding veil. But when we took it down to try on with my dress our consultant was very worried that the veil was ivory and the dress is white. And in the pictures the veil does come out looking very yellow, but as it’s taken under yellow light in a room with yellow walls, we weren’t sure if it was going to be a problem or not. So when it’s sunny, sometime in the spring I guess, mum is going to haul my dress and veil into good light and take a picture or seven so that we can see if the contrast is too great. The reason I’m not stressing, however, is that I just found some veils that are almost as good as the one I love on ebay and the prices are very reasonable. So it is a weight off my mind! And yes, I am girly enough to worry over my veil!

I’ve got a warm fuzzy feeling about getting married, most likely because David and I were talking about actual wedding stuff the other day. It is so nice to get his thoughts on things, because they bring me back down to earth and make me focus on what is really important, and it is just really exciting to know that he is excited and involved in wedding planning, even if he spends most of his time working on his thesis instead of fussing over invites.

Christmas is coming up and I’m starting to look forward to it. The one thing I’m really hoping is that neither of our mothers starts getting all teary about how we’re away from home for Christmas, because that will make it hard again, instead of just a fun experience. I wish we could be home, but I don’t want to focus on what I’m missing and instead just focus on what I’m getting—my first Christmas (ever) with David, a chance for us to start setting our own traditions, and a chance to spend Christmas in another country. It is so magical here already—when we go downtown there are pockets of carollers, lights strung up everywhere, and church bells tolling in the distance. Because the city is so old you really feel caught up in an Olde English Christmas play or something.

I am taking part in carolling and going out with the Saint Vincent DePaul society to sign some carols and hopefully raise some money. It is a good start to the Christmas season! We haven’t done much here yet, for one thing because I refuse to start Christmas decorating until advent, and because until I work we’re not going out to buy superfluous stuff like a tree and decorations. We’ve received one Christmas card already, but it was from Royal Mail advising us of extended post office hours...so I’m hoping we get more than that! I’m not going to do much baking, if any, baking this year as I don’t have an electric mixer or any pans (and the grocery store sells delicious cookies and shortbread and pies). We did get our chocolate advent calendars, however, so the sitting room is a little prepped for December. And that is that!

A somewhat poor quality photo of our advent calendars. David has chosen a retro design, but I went for the brightly-gaudy Cadbury's calendar, because I trusted the chocolate quality more.