Let the Re-Gifting Begin!

Happy Christmas from the UK! I feel OK saying this the day AFTER Christmas, because I'm following it up with your Trivial Pursuit-worthy fact o' the day: the Twelve Days Of Christmas traditionally began ON Christmas and continued through New Year's until the 6th of January. I know this because Jan. 6 happens to be my birthday, and I've looked into it. Theoretically, it could be the coolest birthday ever - history would dictate two weeks of gifts and celebrating culminating on Twelfth Night (a play I love, BTW) with a massive party and masked ball or something, at which I would be named Queen of Misrule and make people do all kinds of silly things. (Or I could just be a drama teacher, and do that everyday. Hmmm.) In reality, of course, it just meant growing up that the present I was most excited about would inevitably NOT show up under the Christmas tree, and I'd know I'd have to wait another two weeks before I could have it. (Mom's never been very good with surprises - although she does score sometimes - and it's been a long 20+ years of holiday seasons.) I think it's time to bring back that midwinter two-week party - you know, stimulate the economy, stave off the after-Christmas blues, blah blah blah... it doesn't ALL have to be about me. (Just the big bash. At the end.)

Today is also Boxing Day - the "Black Friday" of the UK that falls on the day after/first business day after Christmas. Originally, this was the day the lords and ladies of the manor would "box up" their leftover food (no refrigeration, natch) and gifts and distribute them to the poor, or the day the parish churches would open the poor boxes (donations) and hand out the money. It's also St. Stephen's Day (from that repeat No. 1 hit, "Good King Wenceslas"), and roving bands of young men used to stone a small bird (because Stephen was stoned, geddit?), a wren, tie it too a pole, blacken their faces, and frighten the populace into giving them money - er, I mean, sing songs and ask the locals to make charitable donations. Maybe your home-grown gangs should try for a little more creativity. Nowadays, the Brits give their money to the poor merchants by lining up at 5 AM to shop for whatever they didn't get the day before. (And in this age of PETA, the roving bands of young reprobates dress up in wigs and women's clothing and carry around a stuffed bird in a cage. I'm not sure if this would be more effective for charitable collections or not.)

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This year's Christmas was fun - I was hoping to volunteer at a homeless shelter, but a) turns out even the homeless shelters shut down for Christmas (sad), and b) there is absolutely NO public transportation on Dec. 25. Craziness. Next, I tried booking a train ticket to Edinburgh ("Eh-din-bur-o") figuring I could hole up in a super-fancy hotel that would naturally be offering a steep discount for the weekend and watch movies and stroll the picturesque streets... and then reality kicked in when I found the regular £24 round-trip train ticket would be much closer to £220 over the holiday weekend. (If I'd booked two months in advance I would have gotten a much better price - romance and spontaneity are so expensive!)

Finally, I was taken in like an orphan waif off the streets by two American course-mates - one of them (Anne) had been scheduled to fly home the week before, but her flight had been cancelled due to the mayhem caused by an inch of snow. The other (Dallas) had already scheduled her flight for today and was sticking around anyway. I hauled a suitcase (including a pillow and a roll of toilet paper - it pays to be considerate with other students) on a train, the Tube, AND a bus on Christmas Eve, and we had a lovely chicken dinner and watched Christmas movies. Then we all slept in yesterday, I got up and opened my presents (more on that later) and we had breakfast for about two hours. (Seriously, we just lazily moved from juice and pastry to bacon to eggs and toast and ate whatever/whenever Anne decided to cook. Good times.) We watched another movie, I attempted to Skype with my family (ending with my brilliant brother holding his iPhone with camera up to the screen of his computer where I was online with him on Dallas' computer so that my parents and sister's family could see/hear me from the computer/over the phone/on their computer - nothing like jerry-rigging your technology!) and we finally got dressed and went down the street to another course-mate's house for a turkey dinner and all the treats I'd gotten from the American section of the high-end grocery store. (The Jell-o No-Bake Cheesecake was a big hit, and way better than I'd remembered.) I certainly haven't eaten that well since I got here!

Today was... trickier. In what I think has to be one of the lowest moves I've seen in a long time, the union scheduled a Tube strike for today, the busiest shopping day of Britain's year. The authorities were calling for employees to ignore the strike and come in anyway - but they didn't. Dallas and I got on the earliest bus we could (8:30-ish was when they started running - Anne had hired a car to get her to Heathrow waaaay earlier), me to head to church and her to get to the airport - and we could not find an open Tube station. Her flight wasn't leaving until one, but with the mess of the past week they'd been asking passengers to arrive three hours early, so she finally caved and took a cab to the Heathrow Express. By the time I got through three frozen bus transfers I realized there was no way I was actually going to get to church, and headed home to thaw out and watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. (And Elf, which I had never seen, and which I'm not all that impressed with. And now I feel weird for putting the First Presidency and Will Ferrell in the same thought process.)

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So tomorrow is the Bank Holiday version of Boxing Day - I'll be packing and cleaning, and if I get too stir-crazy, just might go shopping. I hear there's one other store with (fiercely expensive) American products, and I'll be looking for a cheap TV and DVD player. I'm pretty sure my new place has a TV license, and you can't actually have a conversation with a native Brit if you're not watching X-Factor. Also, we missed the Dr. Who Christmas Special yesterday, and I can't let that happen again.

Happy Holidays, all! Best wishes for whatever this season's falling turtles bring you!