Christmas Stories

I can hardly believe that it is only a week till Christmas! It’s always such a hectic season that time seems to fly by even quicker than usual! As every year, I’m missing the quiet contemplative spirit of advent in Germany – although I admit I had a lovely quiet and contemplative start to the season this year, singing evensong in Lyne for First Advent Sunday: a long afternoon practise, followed by tea and biscuits, and then a “lessons & carols” style service. We had 20 in the choir which was quite joyful, but unfortunately a rather small congregation…

People here in England seem to find more pleasure in making advent into a major rat race – and there’s no escape from it! Everywhere, people are cramming and jostling in the streets, loaded with bags, and in the aisles, stocking up on food and presents like there was no tomorrow. Usually, “Rocking around the Christmas tree” or “Santa is coming to town” are warbling from the loudspeakers in the supermarkets and stores. We even did the “Jingle Bells Jig” at the last Scottish Dance class! I admit I enjoyed that one – more of a party dance but it was a laugh, especially considering the number of people who cannot tell their right hand from their left!

And of course, the world in England now explodes into colour every night once it gets dark – and it does that fairly early after all, around 4pm… Larger-than-life Santas and snowmen are nodding their big heads in the breeze and reindeer sleighs, Christmas trees and angels flicker in and out of existence on many house fronts in a rather garish manner. On the whole, Chertsey isn’t too bad – at least, our official lights are quite tasteful: white or light blue spirals on all the lamp posts, and angels under the roof of our church. Addlestone and Staines are much worse with those modern dark blue lights everywhere. It’s in, but to my taste it’s missing the point: “Light”, as the word implies, should be something light, not dark, and the idea of Christmas lights was to light the dark nights of this season as Christ lights the world. Are we dimming the lights along with the message in an age where it is no longer politically correct to wish a “Merry Christmas”? Well, it’s rather refreshing to have a big (sort of half live sized) nativity scene in one of Chertsey’s shop windows!

St Peters, Chertsey - Christmas Angels

Apart from the lights, the shopping, the decorations and the happy-music everywhere, there are of course also the parties and Christmas dinners. So far Sean and I went to one biggish dinner party with “all the trimmings” at a pub and a quieter private one, both of which were rather enjoyable. A couple of weeks ago the Old Windsor Bellringing Band met at The Oxford Blue which is traditionally a pub but has been turned more into an Italian restaurant. Surprisingly, the food was rather disappointing in every aspect: originality, taste and size. I had a vegetable soup for starters, which was nice all few spoonfuls; then a posh-sounding French Onion Tart which was mainly tart and not much filling, accompanied by nearly black roasted potatoes and very little veggies; and then a brandy-snap basket which had all of 3 bits of fruit in it and a strawberry on top… Well, they made up for it with an ample supply of decorations and toys, and particularly the boys (young and old!) had much fun competing for the longest balloon, or who can blow the most trumpets at once. All in all, a rather noisy evening (we cleared the other Christmas party out of the dining room fairly quickly…) – not very Christmassy but certainly a laugh.

Sean enjoying the balloons

...but Paul's is longer!Sean and his dad "playing" the glasses - the neighbouring table wasn't impressed!Sean's contribution to the "who can play more than one trumpet" competitionDani won: three - two by mouth and one through the nose!

Then last Saturday, our old housegroup met at Charles’ new place for a much more quiet dinner. It was great being able to catch up (and reminisce!) with everybody as we hadn’t been together for the better part of a year. (Remember, our housegroup ceased just before Christmas last year due to moves, new jobs and new babies…) We do of course occasionally meet around church but never all of us together, and rarely with much time to talk. It was quite late by the time we got there – first we had an odyssey through flooded roads in a right deluge, then trying to find “Flat 2, Heatherly”, which we expected to be an apartment block, but when we got to the road we found it had mostly detached houses with their names not readable from the road in the dark... Well, one of them had been converted into two flats, and even their neighbour two doors away didn’t know where it was! Sean finally located it traipsing around through the pouring rain, walking up to the houses to read the name plates! But the company and lovely food made up for it soon and in no time it was midnight and time for parting…

Other seasonal happenings were a Christmas play and a Christmas market. The play was “Oliver Twist”, performed at Woking Theatre by one of our local playgroups: The Ottershaw Players. I usually go to see their shows mainly because my sister-in-law's family are all members of that playgroup. This time both Fiona and Graham had various supporting roles like “a gentleman”, “the bookseller”, “the maid”…, and Zoe was one of Fagin’s band. One of the main roles, namely Oliver Twist, was played by Charles’ son (our dinner host mentioned above). A few of my dancing friends came along as well and we really enjoyed the evening out, even though the play was at times a little difficult to follow. But the stage set and costumes were amazing, and I suppose I was long overdue seeing the classic “Oliver Twist”!

Fiona and Graham in their maid and butler outfits

The “Christmas Market” was in Haslemere and I went there with Monica. It was a nice afternoon out on a sunny day but the market itself was not what I had expected. I suppose, being German, I’m spoiled where Christmas markets are concerned. Apparently, this one was typical by English standards! They had an interesting “live” nativity scene: a straw strewn shelter with two people dressed up as Mary and Joseph in the corner and a variety of livestock pattering around; and a Santa who would have his photo taken with the kids – but other than that nothing to do with Christmas. There was an assortment of food and gift stalls, the only seasonal ones being roast chestnuts (slightly undercooked – probably due to over-demand) and candle & evergreen arrangements. In Germany, Christmas markets have a certain smell to them: mingled mulled wine with gingerbread with grilled sausage with roast chestnuts with the pine trees that are up for sale. No pine trees in sight in Haslemere… Also, all the stalls have to be Christmassy, crafts or charity. Usually, there are stalls from the churches, schools and clubs selling handmade goodies and home cooked biscuits for fundraising; big stalls with lebkuchen and gingerbread houses; all sorts of Christmas decorations; Christmas cards and wrappers; carol CDs; and some more professional crafts stalls. Well, we did end up having a look at everything anyway – I bought some chocolate for Sean and one of the padded chequered shirts he likes to wear for a coat (they are not so easy to find – not very fashionable…); some unusual liquorice as part of FIL’s Christmas present; and a lovely beaded choker from a lacemaker (for myself, hehe).

Monday then kicked off the round of Christmas events at our church: the annual traditional carol service in conjunction with the local museum. Sean and I both joined in the bellringing (I made an embarrassing hash of it!), then stayed for the service which apart from the carol singing always has some interesting vintage Christmas poems and local Christmas anecdotes read out; and afterwards everybody repaired to the museum just down the road for mulled wine and mince pies. I found that two glasses of the very nice mulled wine were detrimental to my cooking mood, so we picked up some fish & chips on the way home! Not very Christmassy again but well…

We never do much in terms of Christmas decorations in our house because Sean doesn't really like the "upheaval" but I did manage to put up some evergreen arrangements from cuttings picked up via Freecycle (a very useful system, that: I can only recommend everybody to join their local group which you can find here: http://www.uk.freecycle.org/ - click on the “UK Groups” link in the black bar at the top to find your local group and sign up there, totally free); the Christmas cards we’ve got so far; and a lovely knitted advent wreath from one of the ladies in my charity crafts group (yes, you’ve read that right: knitted advent wreath – it’s a decoration hanging at the door of our dining room cabinet and hopefully, instructions for making these will soon be available on the SfP blog!).

The knitted Christmas Wreath

Enough about Christmas now – two more parties to go to this week, both Scottish dancing groups. I will be cutting and stuffing dates for the rest of the week!