Old

Pete's birthday was Tuesday and now he's the same age as Jesus.

I ordered this cake for him to take to work, and now I'm a big hit at his office (which is of course why I did it).

Avenue Q

A Christmas present for Pete from me. I wouldn't recommend it for children, parents, daughters, sons, neighbors, females, males, or people who have sinks in their house.
(But it is hysterical).

Old friends

I've known Charis and Seulgi since freshman year at Gordon College, and Charis and I were RDs together for 4 years. The year before I moved to England, they moved here so Seulgi can work on his PhD at Cambridge, and Charis's family is actually English and she was born here.


She got in touch with me before the holidays though because they were going to be in London and we met up with them at Canary Wharf one afternoon over the holiday break.

It was a GREAT visit. They have 3 kids now (they had 2 last time I saw them!) and their oldest, Noah (5), has an English accent. Hysterical! Pete loved them and keeps asking me when we can go to Cambridge to see them. Soon honey, I promise.




We made a must-have stop at a rare Krispy Kreme!

Christmas 09

This was my first Christmas away from my family. Don't tell them, but I hardly noticed. (Mostly kidding) My own family had a non-traditional year because of my sister-in-law being almost due with "our" first baby so they all went to Philly to be with Joel and Cynthia.


Christmas morning. Pete and I somehow found ourselves surrounded with presents, which of course was a lot of fun! I'll spare you the pictures of me in my pajamas and glasses.





















We went to church in the morning and then to Pete's parents house for the day.







His mum set a beautiful table - I think maybe partly because of the "guest" they had this year (me!)
Delicious food. English Christmas dinner is pretty similar to what we eat for Thanksgiving - apart from the Christmas pudding, which I still don't understand.
It was great to experience a traditional English Christmas, with real live English people. And English dogs. We had a GREAT day and really enjoyed it.

Southwark Cathedral

Southwark Cathedral was built between 1220 and 1420. And I see it every day on my way to work. Tonite I went to one of their Christmas "Lessons and Carols" services which was really lovely.



This is what it would look like inside without a million people.



In addition to being lovely, it was the most stressful 75 minutes I've experienced in a long time. It was packed - there were like a million people in there, and we each held a lit candle for the entire time. It dripped on my hand, I dropped my brochure, I kept needing to scratch things, every time the woman in front of me was slow in standing up I was sure I was going to burn her head, and I could hardly focus on the service for all the worry that even if I didn't start the inevitable fire, there was no way all million of us were leaving that place unscathed. Amazingly, we seemed to (although I have no idea why we're allowed to have the candles).


I discreetly took this at my seat, before we were handed the sticks of destruction.

The other parts of London are beautiful

I went to Harrods the other night, via an area called Sloane Square in Chelsea. It's very upscale South West London (to my "downscale" East London) and it's just so beautiful. The pictures I snapped on my phone didn't really come out so I found these online which much better capture what it looks like down there right now.



Incidentally, Leytonstone does decorate for Christmas, and even uses the popular blue lights as well, but it looks more like a neon blue Six Flags than anything.

Joe meets Pete meets Charlie Brown

My friend Joe and my boyfriend Pete hadn't met yet, and Joe agreed to share our "tradition" (ie we did it last year) with Pete, of watching Charlie Brown's Christmas.

Nobody here seems to have seen it (!) so I am slowly introducing it to the country. So far, 2 Christmases, 2 people.
The fellas meet on George Lane in South Woodford! Joe came all the way up from South London to Pete's place to meet him, watch it, and see if he could endure an afternoon North of the river.

Joe in turn made us watch to The Snowman, which I'd never seen and is so lovely. I think Christmas is all about being 8 years old.

Christmas shopping with the Grinch

Joe and I went to my most favoritist place ever last weekend, Greenwich Market. Their Christmas market is even bigger, busier and more beautiful than the normal one. It was so nice to walk around with my Gingerbread latte and find interesting gifts for people.


Joe is smiling, which is a combination of a Christmas miracle and he knows someone is about to hand him some food.

German Christmas in England

Christmas in London is really nice. The other day Rob and I went to a German Christmas Market on the South bank of the Thames. I took this weird picture of him in front of some kind of "wiener shack".



It was nice to be down by the old familiar sites in the Christmas season too. They're so pretty in the pitch black night.

Tree, Christmas, all that kind of stuff

My little 5 foot plastic tree has a new home in Pete's apartment this year. No room in my studio. It's been fun swapping Christmas chat with my Englishman and learning about the have weird traditions they have here. Santa Claus is Father Christmas! And you leave him mince pie and sherry!
Pete hasn't even seen A Charlie Brown's Christmas, and therefore has no idea what a "Charlie Brown tree" is. How sad.
















And one final pic for the Pete fans: