Christmas 2012 Recap

This is the third time I've started to write this new post, and hopefully third time's a charm, because up until now every time I start something happened and changed my perspective and what I wanted to write about. The first one I tried was a re-cap of Christmas and how much fun it was celebrating Christmas in London with my parents (it was a lot of fun), then it didn't happen because I couldn't find the time and energy to write and I thought maybe it will be boring to read a long description of what we did, so I posted lots of photos on Facebook, and started writing the second post that was all about the new year, closing 2012 and opening 2013, resolutions and things like that, but then my parents left, I was sad, I was behind on all the house chores (the laundry is still smirking at me. I can feel it), Hidai went back to work and on top of all that yesterday was not the best of days family-wise. And that is how we ended up here, on the third try of a post that frankly I don't know what to write in.

Decision time - after the computer decided to delay this post even more by deleting everything I've been working on for the past couple of days, and life decided to annoy me this whole week, I've decided, after one batch of laundry and one jar of Marshmallow Fluff to split it and that this post will be a grandparents and Christmas recap, elbit a short one (I will try at least to keep it short) and the next post will be a more serious year-end-new-year thing.

Christmas with my parents was absolutely great. Way way better than we hoped. We had a few concerns going in, mainly because it was their first Christmas ever and our first one living here, and living in Israel you don't really get the whole Christmas spirit. You do get criticized about it though. A lot. That is why in spite of all our best efforts to make them understand the Christmas, they didn't, and we were worried that all this Jewish/Israeli pressure will arrive here with them and will not let them (and us) enjoy the Christmas properly. Luckily we were proven wrong, and they jumped right on the Christmas wagon. It was the first time since April 2008 that we were touring London with my parents, and it proved that we learnt a few things since then :).
What did we do? First of all we spent 2 months on Skype telling them horror stories about the weather to make sure they come prepared, and even though it wasn't really London cold, it was way below Israel temperature, so the fact that they brought each and every piece of warm clothing they have (and some new ones) helped a lot, and they were comfortable most of the time (except at home, where I keep the temperature at a lovely 25 degrees Celsius).
We gave them our bedroom and slept on the air mattress in the living room (actually, since it's open plan, and I didn't want to move anything in the room we slept in the kitchen). First of all it contained (most of) the mess in one room that has a door you can close, second of all it gave them privacy, and third - the mattress is better. Oh and they had the TV and en-suit of their own, so we got no complaints... It was the first time we've done that, and it worked beautifully.
We made lots of plans, so that each day we had a plan - even if that plan was to stay at home, it was still discussed and planned. We made every effort to go outside and enjoy London.
We had TV shows and movies at the ready, so that not every night will be an all-night-long conversation about life and family. We watched all the stand-up comedy shows we could find (I loved Michael McIntyre the most), and the Skyfall movie (really don't understand the hype)

We started our Embrace the Christmas campaign on the first day, by taking them to Oxford st. to see the Christmas lights. It was raining. It was full of people. it was magnificent! For Hidai and me it was a full circle since we first came to London for our honeymoon 9 years ago Christmas eve, and walked around Oxford st. watching the lights and the people. Not a lot has changed in the last nine years, except that we're now living our "live in London someday" dream, and that, well, we had 2 grandparents and 2 kids with us. Not as romantic as the first time around...

 

Next morning we continued with a trip to Coven Garden and its area to see the Christmas lights and feel the Christmas (and the rain).

After that we had a traditional Christmas dinner. With a turkey. I know it might not seem like a big deal, but we've never roasted a turkey before (or anything else for that matter.), and we actually ordered what we hoped would be an already made one. It was not. It was a 5 kg (11 pounds) scary beast that sat in my fridge for 4 days (vegetarian here). But after grandma (and Hidai) prepared it, everyone said it was very good (next Christmas - smaller turkey, more stuffing). We went with the Jewish tradition of having the big dinner on the eve of (it's done, I think, because according to Jewish belief the day runs from sunset to sunset, so the holiday begins on the sunset of the eve - the day before. And also that way you can enjoy a big dinner on the eve and have a big lunch made from exactly the same food on the day. That is done because Jewish people always make enough food for 3 days. Otherwise it's as if you haven't made enough. We had everything I understood you're supposed to have in a Christmas dinner - turkey, gravy (store bought. This year we invested most of our efforts in the actual turkey), mashed, sweet potatoes (maple glazed of course), rice, sweet carrots, sprouts and a cake (chocolate-orange yummy creation in the shape of a Christmas tree).

 

Grandparents also had their first visit from Santa, who (while watching Friday Night Dinner Christmas Special) had to work really hard the night before Christmas to make sure the kids got the same number of presents from the same people. I find it kind of weird that there is no one "correct" way to celebrate Christmas and every family does it differently. In Jewish holidays there is only one way to celebrate, one way to give the presents etc. So what we do is - each kid writes a list to Santa (at the moment Ron is in charge of both of them), give it to mum who as part of her duties as a Christmas elf (seriously. It took me a while to convince Ron that I am an elf...), pass it on to Santa, who then allocates gifts to different people in our family (translation - mum put everything in the excel file and then buys almost all the gifts and stick different tags on them so that the kids will feel they get presents from lots of different people in the family), as the time passes in December and always although we start the month with most gifts ready, and saying that this year it will not happen, we buy more gifts for the kids, and then on Christmas eve we allocate all gifts so the kids have the same amount of gifts and from the same people in the family (no jealousy allowed on Christmas), and of course Santa always has his gift. This year we added the new pijama and a Christmas T-shirt to the whole thing, and of course Ron wrote Santa a really long thank-you note, to which he got a lengthily response. Being a Christmas elf is a lot of work.

 

After Christmas, we promised my parents the full Boxing Day experience, so we took the bus to Oxford st (damn the Tube strike. It can be done on the bus but takes ages...). Next year I think we can switch to the much more convenient method of Internet shopping. Much less crowded. But anyway for us it was again a trip down memory lane. Unfortunately it was not as satisfying as it was nine years ago. I guess it had something to do with not having 800 Pounds to spend in a day this time :)

 



After all that, we waited at home for a rainy day or two and then headed out to visit Winter Wonderland in hyde Park - where we won (after a few tries, in a few booths, I must say) a huge teddy-bear that we had to carry home on the tube, but that Yon adores. We were there for about 3 hours and didn't even see half of it, it was so big and full of things to see and do. The kids were really disappointed to leave, but it was getting cold, we were getting hungry and so we decided it's better to leave before someone cries. Being in Hyde Park obviously led to going back to Marble Arch and some shopping for grandparents (we had a teddy bear to get home...).

 

We closed off the year with a visit to the Natural history Museum, to finally watch the dinosaure exhibition (gorgeous exhibition, and even Yon liked it). We've been putting off going to this specific museum because of me. I wasn't sure if the exhibits are not... Too gross for me (there was one with the inside of the animals, or the insect one that has... Insects). Also I always feel as if it's really hard getting to the museum areas from our home. It's not. In the end it turned out that it's very easy getting to the museum, and that the museum was very interesting and not gross. Success.

 

We embraced the New Year with a some wine (our favourite, that grandparents brought with them from Israel), a movie (New Year's Eve, which seemed an apt choice on New Year's Eve...), and the fireworks on TV (were very sorry we weren't there) and outside (some young people took initiative and set up an unauthorised fireworks display inside our communal area. Gotta love young people).

To really feel like tourists we went to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, but it was packed so we only saw part of it. The kids really enjoyed St. James Park, and we took some pictures of the horses at Horse Guard Parade. We finished the day at Trafalgar Square, with its very big tree.

 

I have 3 photos from there, from over the years - the first one from 2003, the second one with Ron (and pregnant with Yon) from 2009, and from this visit. I guess it's one way to see how life has changed...

 


Ron won a ruffle to go to the Junior Gunners Fun Day, and had his Best Day Ever :) where he had a chance to meet all the players in the first team, get his Theo Walcott book signed by Theo, play air hockey and other games with the players and a pantomime show. It was 400 kids, and we were very worried that he will be okay, have fun, actually get the autographs he wanted (he got Walcott and Wilshere but not Podolski unfortunately), etc. Of course he was fine, he managed on his own and did not really care that we abandoned him there for a full day. Also I think Hidai was just jealous and that's why he was sorry he didn't get to go with Ron...

On the last day of the visit we went to the Battersea Children Zoo, because a) it's a very bad idea to sit moping around the house on the last day, b) we were unsure if Yon is actually ready for the big zoo (he did not really like the whole real animals are big realisation), c) we wanted to see where the hell is Battersea. We took the 19, which is known around this areas as "the magic bus" (seriously, people actually say that). It's a very cute zoo, very good four young kids, and Yon had the time of his life. He refused to leave. And to call it "a small zoo", he said it was "a very big zoo". And that's that.

 

The visit ended with pizza, Ben & Jerry's (chocolate fudge brownie. Is there any other kind?), and tears. But not to worry, they are back in May. And September. And December.