Lifestyle

Christmas Traditions

England does Christmas well. I think it’s the most magical time of the year to be abroad, really. It’s because I’ve spent most of my childhood in New Mexico. And as much as I love New Mexico, cactus never fulfilled my literary and Hollywood projections of Christmas. (I can’t wait for Sam to experience his first New Mexican Christmas. I think he’ll really like eating tamales and seeing the luminarias.) England rarely fails to win at Christmas; from fairy lights everywhere, to the scent of mulled wines and ciders in every pub, to Christmas fairs all over. This year marks my 6th Christmas in England. Two in London, two in Yorkshire and now this year will make two outside of Bristol.

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My first Christmas in London involved the American girl I lived with and I skyping our families, eating Funfetti frosting out of the container and then going out to dinner at a Turkish restaurant in Islington. (The only thing we could find open on Christmas Day.) The elderly grandfather of the owner of the restaurant read the coffee grounds for us in our traditional Turkish coffees. The next year, I was relaxing by a blazing fire with Sam’s family in Yorkshire being stuffed to the brim with traditional Christmas dishes. From the ridiculous to the sublime. 

We’ve now been together long enough that we have Christmas traditions of our own. Unfortunately for Sam, he is a Christmas baby. So Christmas Eve usually is made into a birthday drinks night. We go tree shopping together shortly after American Thanksgiving, make opening Advent calendars together into a race, and make Christmas egg ornaments every year (we have a dozen now!). On top of that, we always try to make space in our busy winter calendars for some sort of festive winter activity, be that ice skating or going to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. And Christmas Day usually involves Sam and I playing charades together for a few minutes, even if it’s just the two of us. 

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Luckily for me, I found an Englishman who finds turkey as “meh” as I do. 

What are you Christmas traditions?

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