Christmas Time in London Town

So I suppose y'all would like to know about my Christmas here, eh? Well, it was basically like a week's worth of Christmas.

Most of the singles had left to go back home for Christmas. And since we were fewer in numbers last Sunday we even just had a combined EQ/RS class. After that we were all invited to one guy's flat for dinner. We filled the room but it wasn't overfilled. Played games, ate food, etc.

Tuesday night was another dinner put on by a couple singles living together. It was a good ol' traditional English Christmas dinner, complete with Yorkshire pudding and for dessert was a delicious trifle. Afterwards we played Dirty Santa and other games. As we were leaving the hostess of the party handed out wrapped presents to everyone. She even gave me a couple extra bc she knew I would be having people over for Christmas day.

I had invited anyone who was sticking around to come and stay at my place for Christmas. In my house for 7, I was the only one staying. And the entire transportation system was completely shut down on Christmas Day. So I invited people to come over Christmas Eve and leave the day after Christmas Day (Boxing Day). After I got off work at PJ's on Christmas Eve, I headed home to meet a couple of the girls who would be staying at the house with me. I was expecting a much bigger number, but those were the only ones that came. Everyone else seemed to be sick. We really wanted to go see a Midnight Mass, but since the transportation was to be shut down after midnight the only way to get home would be by taxi - which would be charging a premium. So we decided to just be lazy and watch one on tv. :) We all seemed to get really sleepy really early (shows how interesting the service was), so we were all in bed by 1:00 (separate beds). ;)

We woke up Christmas morning and opened the presents that the girl had given me the other night. If it wasn't for her we all wouldn't have had anything to open on Christmas morning! Except me - I got my soap-on-a-rope. :) But it was really nice of her to do that. It was a stocking filled with random treats in it. And it had a nice little Christmas message from Pres. Monson on a card. There are some generous/creative people in this world! The other day, one of the girls and I had gone to a grocery store to gather up loads of food for Christmas. We planned for a lot more, so we had plenty of leftovers. She was really into the whole feast idea. I was fine with microwavable pizzas, personally. Some people are just more ambitious. But between her and the other girl we had a wonderful meal! And that morning we were joined by another guy in the ward who has a car. So the 4 of us sat down to a great Christmas meal of turkey, lasagna, vegetables, gravy, and sparkling cider (more or less). We had some good plans for the rest of the day - going to a park, going to a church service (since we had access to a car now), going for a walk, etc. None of that happened. We all got way lazy - especially since it gets dark around 3:30 - and we sat and watched tv the entire afternoon/evening. It was wonderful! :) I think we ended up watching 3 movies in all. And among all 4 of us were an American, a South African, an Australian, and an Italian. Not even one Brit in there. How ironic. But it was a wonderful Christmas, and I got to spend it with some really great people.

The next day was Boxing Day. To me it seemed to be identical to our day after Thanksgiving. It was the huge shopping day of the year when everything goes on sale. Most businesses are still closed. And from what one girl told me, it's usually tradition to go on walks that day. I spent the whole day working on a talk. Snappy Snaps was closed but I did go to work at Papa John's in the evening. We were so slow though that they let me go home after just a couple hours. So I at least got my walk in to work and back. :)

Today, since there's still basically no one left in my singles ward, our ward was combined with the family ward in the morning. I think there were about 10, maybe 15, singles there. And I got to be the first speaker followed by the mission pres's wife, then the mission president. It was an interesting situation - I had prepared a rather long talk bc I didn't know what the order of speakers was. While I was speaking I kept my eye on the clock to see how I should narrow it down. I had planned to skip a story and go to an instructional part taken from a general authority talk if time was slim. Well, time was slim but after a moment of hesitation I decided to reverse that idea and share the story instead and just highlight the instructional part. The mission pres's wife got up after me and basically shared the talk that I had gotten that instructional part from. If I had skipped the story like I originally planned, I would've stolen her talk completely. Guess she must've been praying for me not to take her material. :)

Got back after church today with some others - including the ones from Christmas - and cooked up the leftover food we never got around to eating. Communal eating seems to be a very popular thing here!