Christmas

They’ve started to put up Christmas decorations in London. As you may or may not know, I’m strongly against preparing for Christmas too early, early meaning anything before Thanksgiving. Everything in its right time, one holiday at a time is my mindset. But since they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here, I suppose I have to bend a little. And to be honest, I was walking down Regent Street today and they had decorations above the streets celebrating the 12 days of Christmas, and combined with the nippy weather and bustle of the city, it was pretty dang magical. There’s something about Christmas in the city that’s pretty cool.

I suppose I’ll figure this out, but I don’t get Christmas here. Every single restaurant is advertising that they’re taking Christmas bookings (their word for reservations) now. What is a Christmas booking? Christmas dinner? That’s what I’d think, but these bookings are all for around Dec 1 – 23, not actually Christmas day. So do people here celebrate a big Christmas meal but not on Christmas? I’ll have to figure this out.

I also saw the funniest ad, I should have taken a picture, as I can’t remember the exact text, but it said something along the lines of “Imagine celebrating Christmas without x, y, and z. It would be unthinkable, wouldn’t it?” Except x, y and z were the most random, non-Christmas associated things. I wish I remember what they were, but it was as random as saying spinach, comic books, and Wham! (Actually, Wham! is the one thing I do remember that was actually on the ad.) Uh, yes, I can imagine Christmas without those things. Apparently Christmas is different here.