A Canadian Guide to a British Christmas

For my Christmas abroad I'll be spending it a bit north of Canterbury in Cotton, near Ipswitch (which I had formerly thought was a name made up for Monty Python's dead parrot sketch). In order to properly educate myself I watched Julie Walter's (Molly Weasley's) Very British Problems at Christmas; a special consisting of various comedians and actors commenting on the finer points of the holiday. For those of you who didn't catch it, I took notes:

The British Christmas is built on tradition, so even aspects which people find repulsive are firmly adhered too because that's how it's always been done. There must be a Christmas walk, because there has been for a long time, food that no one really wants to eat remains on the menu because it's traditional and trauma- inducing primary school nativity plays remain in schools so that decades later adults can still harbour bitterness about being passed over for the good parts. The Brit's distaste for sentimentality is extremely exasperated by the holiday season. The habit of expressing a 'Happy Christmas' to complete strangers on the street is frustratingly foreign, and having outsiders come and sing at you in your own home brings a whole new level of stress. Are you supposed to make eye contact? Give them money? How much!? Best just to close the door so the problem goes away. This awkwardness is made worse by the enforced enclosure of family gatherings and holiday socials therefore topics of conversation should be limited to:
- subtly suggesting the room is too hot or too cold before you succumb and suffer in sweaty silence
-full details on how you arrived at the party so others may suggest a faster route
-comments on the weather where "it's a bit chilly today" essentially translates into "we've never really got on and I have nothing to say to you" 
- reviewing the Christmas schedule repeatedly, assigning the same jobs that everyone has had for years because change is forbidden
- asking for another drink to help cope
Gifts must be proceeded by expectation-lowering various excuses in case the person doesn't like it, mention that the gift receipt is in there and it's all the store had when you got there. (This contrasts with the Peters tradition of explaining in detail how the gift works and how you already own 5 of them and love them dearly.) Effort put into the Christmas meal is played down and compliments must be shrugged off. As creatures of habit, the entire holiday season is fraught with insecurities for the British people. The uncertainties regarding what time the shop is open till and whether the buses are still running means they meet the end of the holidays with relief. I'm no authority on this, I'm merely reporting back from a comedic television program, but I will be keenly observing while wishing a Merry Christmas to every stranger I pass.

I took the train to Cambridge to meet up with Abigail and walk around for the day. It was weird to see a uni friend in their hometown, made me wish I could teleport everyone to Calgary for a day to show them around: 'and here we see the Jenn in her natural habitat.' Cambridge is a lovely city, there's so many pretty old buildings and colleges. I couldn't believe that there were still people offering punting trips on the river three days out from Christmas. We wandered about the city and into the museum for a while, I love seeing the real artifacts that I remember seeing pictured in my books. We settled down in a crepe cafe and talked for a few hours and had a cup of tea at her house before catching the train back.

 I also had the chance to visit Kat in Bury St. Edmunds, another uni friend in context. I had thought the town was named because St. Edmund was was buried there, but apparently 'Bury' comes from Burg, a walled city. Personally, I think my reason is more clever. We walked around for some last minute Christmas shopping and then while Kat popped out to get her hair cut I wandered around the abbey gardens and their Cathedral. While not as big as Canterbury's, I found it more warm and colourful and the garden, ruins and towers were lovely to kill a few hours. We settled down in a Starbucks to chat and walked back to her place to watch Princess Bride. 

It's been absolutely lovely being at a home, even if it's not mine, for Christmas. I met the Bedfords at the wedding of Adam, their son and Emily, a friend of mine from Elementary school and they were wonderful to invite me over for the holiday. I've learned that British tele gameshows are really just an excuse to have British comedians banter at each other rather than an actual competition. Personal favourites are Would I Lie To You, Mock the Week, Nevermind the Buzzcocks and QI. I partook in the traditional game of Harry Potter Clue (Cluedo) and lost quite soundly, I'm not much for strategy and my family is not a games night family. Googling "how to win at clue" halfway through didn't help. Chris, Joe and I went to the midnight carol service Christmas Eve. The church had over 100 Christmas trees all decorated as some sort of festival, felt like walking into a well light forest. The British version of 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' is to a very different tune, and my new favourite line or any carol is 'bring me flesh and bring me wine' from Good King Wenceslas. The priest gave a really nice sermon, including Syria's role in the Christmas story and our responsibility to help. 

At 2am Christmas Day I was skyping my family as they were eating and opening presents. It will always feel weird not being home for Christmas, and I'd love to be home with my family, but at the same time I know how blessed I am to be out here and doing everything I am. I'm on an exchange program, it kinda comes in the name that you have to give something up to get the experience. After finally getting to bed, and then church the next morning we started making Christmas dinner. It was all the classics, turkey, cranberry sauce, yorkshire puddings, 2 kinds of potato, champagne and of course brussle sprouts. It was amazing, and by the end and I was as stuffed as the turkey. All of us had a bit of an afternoon snooze afterwards, before we watched the Queen's speech on the tele and opened presents. Presents were grand, come January I'm going to be a walking advert for the BBC and I'll be able to eat enough chocolate to warrant a New Years Resolution. Bedford's have this amazing tradition, which I intend to implement back home, of writing clues on the presents to have a guess before opening them. We skyped with Adam and Emily, who had just gotten out of bed. I finally had the chance to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special, in peace, with no certain family members mocking the Daleks or sonic screwdrivers. We also played "Go For Broke," basically a combination of Monopoly and Life where you have to gamble and try to loose all your money, very counter to my Mennonite instincts but I did manage to win. It's been an absolutely wonderful Christmas, I can't thank the Bedford's enough and to everyone who made it to the end of this very long post Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!