Hello everyone,
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I personally had a very good time this year, so let me tell you about my Christmas experience in England. (Wow, the introduction was amazingly short today!)
On the 17th of December, I was at the pantomime “Mother Goose” at the Marlow Theatre in Canterbury and although it was partly VERY strange and exaggerated, I had a lot of fun. It was the first time that I saw (or should I rather say “experienced”?) a pantomime, so I was surprised by the way the actors on the stage interacted with the audience, especially when they started to spray water at us (well, several people have actually warned me about this, but I was not as well prepared as the man with the umbrella who was sitting next to me).
The next day at school was good fun too. At the end of November, a group of girls at school* asked me if I want to join their Secret Santa group (which is similar to “Wichteln”) and I was very pleased about that, so I prepared a box with sweets and a Christmas card for my Secret Santa partner. Okay, in the end this entire Secret Santa thing is never really “secret” as you always get to know where your present is from, so when we had exchanged our presents, I found out that the girl that I have prepared a gift for has drawn me as her Secret Santa partner too, so we matched by chance. :) I got a lovely notebook (of course the one made of paper, not the electronic one!) and a cupper bookmark from her, which I both really liked.
*Okay, I know that the description “a group of girls at school” sounds very ... formal. To be honest, I do not know which words to use because I consider them as my friends, but I am not quite sure if I AM THEIR friend. That’s why I tried to find a neutral name for this group of people that I like to spend my time with. (Oh god, if anyone of them comes across this article now or later, I will probably get into an awkward situation. :_D )
Thursday was the last day of school before Christmas holidays, so I did not have a proper school day of course. After two normal periods, there was a “Christmas Party” in the 6th Form Common Room, which sounded much fancier than it actually was. It was basically nothing more than a free period, so my Group Of Friends (this sounds better, does it?) and I did a Christmas quiz which one of them has prepared and played cards. While getting into a state between being awake and being asleep, I realized that almost everybody around me looked very tired and had dark rings under their eyes (which were still visible under a layer of make-up). Okay, it is not like I have not noticed this the days before, but the last day of school is probably the time when we are finally confronted with the consequences of the lack of sleep from the previous weeks.
During the last period, there was a Christmas Business Assembly in the main hall. It was organized by some students and after a lot of short speeches and Christmas videos where both teachers and students were forced to do embarrassing things, the school band played a Christmas song for everyone and then we were free to go. My Group Of Friends (njahhaarrgh ...) and I went to Canterbury for some Christmas shopping and about two hours later we ended up in a Costa café for lunch. Afterwards we decided to go home because everyone was still very tired, so I got on the bus to Sellindge soon. On my way home I did not really fall asleep, but I kinda drifted away into a melancholic state.
The days before Christmas were absolutely and utterly ... unproductive (okay, at the moment they are still very unproductive, but at least I got myself to writing another blog entry). My days were generally made up of preparing some last Christmas gifts, sleeping, listening to music and now and then I even went for a walk in order to not completely fall into a Christmas coma. On one day I went to Hythe for a few hours and in the evening of the 24th of December, my host family watched an episode of Sherlock Holmes in the living room. I personally was half reading my book and half being scared of the corpse on the TV screen who resurrected after being shot dead.
So yesterday I had my first Christmas that I did not spend in Germany. It started quite early in the morning – at 7.10 am to be exact because I still had to put my presents under the Christmas tree. :_D Afterwards, I went to bed again, but as I could not fall asleep, I decided to get up. At around 10/11 am, the entire house was gathered in the living room, so my host sister Rosie started to distribute the Christmas presents. I was quite excited for some reason and when everyone has laughed about each other’s presents (in a good way of course), we just relaxed in the living room and I grabbed my book again. Later on, Laura’s mother and her partner arrived, which told us that it was almost time for Christmas dinner (at 2 pm :_D). My host parents, their son Morgan and Laura’s mother prepared turkey, pigs in blankets (=sausages wrapped in bacon), peas, sweet corn, parsnips, carrots, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetarian dumplings, several sauces, some slices of fake chicken for Rosie and vegan pastry with vegetables for Morgan and me. Oh, and by the way: We also had Christmas pudding with custard, Brandy and clotted cream afterwards. :_D Well, this was PROBABLY not a very light meal, but it was soooo delicious and I think everyone of us really enjoyed it.
Then, we spent some time in the living room again and at 4.30 pm, we all went to the house of Laura’s sister to meet the rest of the family. The evening there was very lovely and Marina and I finally got to know the “newest” member of the family – Thomas, who was born just a few weeks ago. So all in all I had an awesome Christmas day. :) (At this point I want to thank my host family because they are obviously the reason why this day has been so good for me. ^_^)
Today, I got to know a funny tradition of the Jones family and her friends: Every year, they go to the beach in Dymchurch the day after Christmas to go for a walk with the dogs and their horses, no matter what the weather is like. Well, this year it was literally raining cats and dogs and it was very windy, so we were all soaked after a few minutes. It was fun anyway and I felt very thankful that I was allocated to a host family that seems to be a little tiny bit crazy. ;)
Rosie and Lucy with their ponies Tiny and Charlie Brown on the beach in Dymchurch.
So that’s how I spent my holidays so far. I will probably write another entry quite soon because in a few days Laura and Peter’s Italian exchange student from last year and her siblings are going to visit us and we plan to go to Dover Castle with them. In addition, my Group Of Friends and I want to spend a “museum day” in London and there is still New Year’s Eve ... So I think I will also enjoy the second half of my holidays. :)
Have a lovely day and see you soon,
Sandra :)