Christmas 2013: The Highlights!

Ten days since my last post. It's been a very long vacation which cost me about 5,000 pounds and 5 kg. I'm joking of course. It was only 3,000 pounds. While writing this I am still half comatose from the enormous lunch I've had today, and yesterday and every single day before that. Holidays and food are intertwined in a way second only to football and beer (yes, I know my analogy is steaming from the fact that today's entertainment was watching an Arsenal match at the pub), and trying to write anything while in this state is proving to be somewhat difficult. Summarising a holiday is never an easy thing. After all in our family if you finish a holiday with lots of photos it can only mean one thing - it was a lousy holiday. And if you did have a good time, and you don't have photos, you probably ate too much and drank too much and already went through all the Christmas chocolate and now can't move or think. And anyway nobody wants to hear how you are full of love and light and wine.
On the other hand, no one wants to hear how my Christmas did not go as I planned at all this year. I was sick for most of the time and even needed antibiotics, my Christmas baking did not go as planned (at least as far as I'm concerned. Everyone else said it was totally fine, at least that is what their crumbs filled mumbling sounded like ), I haven't slept well in weeks, my posting schedule went down the toilet, and I gained at least 3 kilos.
So I have decided to do a Christmas recap in one go by using everyone around and publish it when no one will read it - right before New Years.
Without further ado - Christmas 2013: The Highlights!

1. Grandparents visit (because they made me write it first). It is so much nicer to have then here when we are all on holiday, there is no pressure to get to school, or get things done on time, or while everyone is stressed and busy. Holidays are the best time to entertain and Christmas with its many activities and added excuse for everything (we absolutely HAVE to eat a second breakfast made entirely out of chocolate and Baileys. It's Christmas) is the best time in the year for it.

2. Christmas dinner. Well, actually no one here put it down as a highlight, but the way I see it - we survived the making and eating of yet another holiday meal, during which we swore at least a dozen times that we will never do that again, yelled about ten times per person, accused each other on ruining the food at least a dozen times, ate too much during preparations, worked for ten hours on food that got eaten in under an hour (and had three days worth of leftovers). How can that not be a highlight? And yes, of course we will do it all again next year. After all it's what we call bonding in this family.

3. Yon's pick - Meeting Santa at the London Zoo. Yon is not a big fan of Santa actually, he finds the whole thing quite intimidating, and he is never willing to talk or smile, but this time was (somewhat) different, because it was in his beloved zoo. I booked the tickets in advanced and prayed for weeks that we'll have good weather. I hate booking in advance, especially in London, exactly because of that - you never know what kind of day you're gonna get, but we ended up with a sunny and cold one, which as it turned out was perfect - the animals were all awake and inside so we saw all of them (except for the always sleeping lion), and though the queue to see Santa was about an hour long, he was really nice, everything was organised really well and the boys loved the gifts they got. We even managed to get a family photo out of it with Yon not looking as if we made him sit next to a serial killer.

4. Ron's pick - his xBox. He asked for one four months ago. He waited ever so patiently for it. He did his best to be on the good list. He worried up until Christmas Eve that he won't get it. He jumped in the air (literally) when he ripped through the wrapping paper. He can't stand being apart from it. He already mastered the FIFA 14 game, and is having long conversation with the Kinect. So it comes as no surprise that his xBox was his choice, but what he really meant was Christmas Day. I really don't think there is anything better than waking up to Christmas Day. I got a Kindle and have already read one book, Hidai got a ticket to a Pearl Jam concert in July, grandparents went for phones and booze, but Yon got the best presents of all - a robofish (who died an early death due to lack of batteries) and a camera and is now spending most his time walking around the house snapping blurry pictures of everyone.

5. Hidai's pick - LegoLand Windsor. As we were sooooo good this year Santa has decided to give us all an extra gift - one night at the LegoLand resort. Actually we decided on that because we want to work our way up to DisneyWorld. We were unsure how Yon would react to the hotel, and Ron to the activities and figured one night at LegoLand when most of it is closed because of winter is the perfect place to start. Despite a few minor glitches at the beginning (apparently it's a big surprise that when you book two rooms under your name you want them to be adjoined. Or at least close.) and the fact that Yon wasn't feeling very well, we powered through (got the rooms) and it turned out to be a wonderful holiday for the family. I was so happy to see Yon running through the castle in the indoor play area, or the outside play area, and I was happy to see Ron willing to try all the activities (he was only slightly crossed about losing to Hidai in the shooting game). We will be back for sure in the summer to see the rest of the resort and activities (and beat Hidai at shooting).

6. Grandparents pick 1 - Boxing Day Shopping. As real Londoners we laughed in their faces about the thought of going out to Oxford St. for a spot of shopping, and declined their generous invitation to drag two boys to do their favourite activity of all - watching other people shop. As it turned out grandparents loved every minute of it, and bought everything they planned to, so next year we are sending them with a list of our own.

7. Grandparents pick 2 - Football at the Pub. We wanted an authentic pub watching experience as we've never done that, but as it turned out we chose the poshest pub around because of a combination of having to have vegetarian food, a family-friendly atmosphere and clean toilets. As my dad summarised it, it cost us the price of a new tablet, and the boys were less keen on the food (the chocolate brownie went down without a problem though), but Arsenal won, the people were happy, and the food was great. Next time we rob a bank, we'll be back for sure.
8. My pick... Well, I loved it all, but my highlight was without a doubt watching the Hobbit movie (the second one of course) in the cinema. And although I spilled half my popcorn when I tried taking a photo with my phone, had a shrieking girl sit behind me and encountered a drunken guy on the bus back, I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of actually not going to the cinema to watch an animated movie. And as for the distractions, which to be honest used to drive me crazy, it's amazing what getting used to watching TV and movies with children gets you accustomed to.

9. Last thing we did just before Christmas was connect our TV (and all other devices) to both Netflix and Hulu. This is the place to admit I love silly American TV shows, and by using some electronic hocus-pocus managed to connect all my devices so that I can watch all my TV shows and the American Netflix channel. We've already watched three movies (which is a personal record for us, but unfortunately were lousy).
10. As I see it, like most things in life, Holidays never go as planned, and so far this one has proven to be the same. Every year we find a different solution for it. Usually it includes some chocolate, lots of arguments and the weirdest sense of humour around, but this year we've decided to add the secret ingredient and added alcohol to the mix, and by now grandparents have already drank the whole Chocolate Baileys we bought them, a few bottles of wine and many many glasses of beer. Next year we are planing ahead and starting to stock up in September.

Happy New Year Everyone! See you on the other side :)

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Christmas cards

I haven't really kept it a secret that I love Christmas. I mean I've written about six posts relating to the holidays, posted about twenty photos of various holiday activities, and talked about it non-stop. My house looks like a giant bauble full of glitter has exploded all over it, I've been munching Christmas treats all day long, and the concierge at our building knows me, my apartment number and how many packages I got today when I just enter the reception area. And with about 700 apartments to look after I think that's saying something (no, contrary to popular opinion around here it does not mean I should stop buying things). But bit by bit I feel the "holiday anxiety" starting to creep up. You see, the truth is I don't like holidays that much. Ok I don't like holidays at all. They are too intense, to stressful, too full of people I rarely like, too... Too suffocating. For me, one of the main perks about living abroad with no family in sight was never having to go through another of those holidays again. Or so I thought. Because as the kids are getting older holidays are becoming much more important. Holidays, after all, are about forming traditions and connections. For many people this connection is with God, for some it's with their country, but for me it's about my boys. By choosing to raise my kids in a different culture, language, environment than I grew up in, I lost something that I couldn't fully appreciate up to that point - I lost the continuity thread that runs through the generations. They don't sing the same songs, read the same stories, or even learn the same history of the world as me. Their view of the world is different to mine and is build on different foundations. And that is exactly what I want for them, but it also makes finding that connection and traditions that much harder. It all depends on me. And I don't really like holidays.
I've adapted, as one does, and over the last four years we created our own traditions and I made my peace with the holidays. But then you have Christmas. And Christmas is not just any old holiday, it's The Holiday, and it comes hand in hand with a gigantic Christmas dinner, what feels like 1,000 presents, two weeks off school and work, and my parents. And the key to the success of what is starting to feel like Mission Impossible 7 is me. And I don't like holidays.

I do, however, like lists. I have a very complex Excel file to organise all the gifts (due to various family issues, I buy all my kids gifts and give them out under different names. Don't ask. It's as absurd as it sounds, and causes me distress to talk about). This file is my saviour, as I have to have the exact same number of gifts per child from each family member, and trying to keep track on what's been ordered, what's arrived, and what is yet to be wrapped is a sure way to go crazy. But it doesn't end here, because you have the teachers presents, the building presents (you know - cleaners, concierge, etc.), our presents, guests presents... Unrelated to that I have the holiday-visit-schedule because past lessons have taught us that six people do not fit well inside a tiny shoebox for long, so I set out to arrange a list of activities that takes into accounts 2 grandparents who don't like the cold, 2 parents who are very tired and 2 kids in different ages who like very different things, and one of them has special needs. Easy peasy. And lastly who can forget the Christmas dinner? Now, I've read all the magazines, and I've eaten 2 traditional Christmas meals, one of them last year we made ourselves. BUT this year we are hosting, and that is completely different because according to Jewish law if you are hosting one person it's as if you have invited a hungry platoon. You are required to make enough food to feed three times the amount of guests you have for at least three days (plus ten precent extra just in case). It's not just when you are talking holidays, it's every meal. But when it's a holiday? it's unforgivable if you don't. There is nothing worse for a Jewish hostess than no leftovers. The saying is, if everything you made got eaten and you don't have any leftovers than you haven't made enough food. Try harder next year. If anyone will be willing to come over again. Bad hostess. So you'll understand when I tell you that I have been stressing over the menu for two weeks now, and having endless conversations with my mum about how many types of pre-dinner nibbles is acceptable, and why I am not going to serve soup. How can you have a holiday dinner with no soup??!

I am having trouble sleeping. The stress of having a perfect (or at least acceptable) Christmas is getting to me, and as it's on top of a less than stellar time, I am starting to crack. I know I am over-reacting, but the last couple of Christmases were a bit on the tight end, and last year was six months after we moved here, so I really want this year's to be perfect for everyone. And last week I started to feel like I'm crumbling under the pressure of all that needs to be done. I really am a very organised person usually (ok I'm obsessive compulsive), and when I am under stress I tend to clean, clear and organise everything I see, but somehow this Christmas became like one of those monster-projects that you just can't defeat, you know the ones - every time you finish one task three jumps up and threaten to bury you underneath a new pile of "have to do's".

This is how I found myself in BHS last week looking for Christmas cards, without being sure even how many I need. Because I forgot to buy them. Ron loves writing Christmas cards to all the kids in his class. I have no idea how many of them actually celebrate Christmas, but since I couldn't find a box with 25 "season greetings" cards they got generic ones (and I also bought a giant dog for Yon. Or maybe it was for me. It looks exactly like a real one and it's fur is so fluffy and cuddly. I need cuddly). He got into the habit when we were in Gibraltar, where everyone give out Christmas cards every year. I think it's a lovely tradition and he enjoys it and doesn't seem to mind that it's less common in our school here. And on top of everything this year we had Yon joining the party. Last year I wrote his cards, but this year I wasn't sure what to do. Should I let him write his own cards or not? I hate these dilemmas, I never know what the right answer is, and I have no basis for comparison. As a rule of thumb I try not to compare Yon to Ron, because I know Ron is not a good indication of what a child is expected to do, after all not all kids know how to write in two languages when they are three.

This is how I found myself on Monday afternoon not really sure what to do, but Yon is going through an "I want to be Ron" period, and he wants to do everything Ron does. He really wanted to do those cards. In the end what I did was write each child's name on the envelope and he copied it to the card and added a JonJon at the bottom (that's his real name - Jonathan. But no one calls him that, because it's too serious, so it's JonJon to everyone except me. And you). He wrote 25 cards, most of them were even legible. It is an incredible achievement for him to be able to copy from a different paper without making a mistake and without getting tired. On Tuesday morning we took the cards to school to hand them out. I thought he would want me to do it, but I was wrong. He was so proud of them, he told every child he saw, he showed the teacher, and he handed them all out by himself.
It always amazes me how much inspiration we can get from our children. How much better they are than us at dealing with difficulties (most of the times), and with Yon, how he doesn't let anything stop him doing exactly what he wants.

I now have three lists ready, one food order for the 21, a complete schedule including Google-Calendar invitations, and a set menu for dinner. And all I am missing is one gift that is on its way and 2 books for Ron.
Because if Yon can do it, I can do it too.

I am linking it for the last time this year (!) to the wonderful Small Steps Amazing Achievements at Ethan's Escapade. Have a wonderful Christmas Jane :)
To the equally lovely Motivational Monday at Pinkoddy, who is always inspiring me to do better :)
To Victoria's wonderful #PoCoLo. Have a very merry Christmas!
And to Jaime's Magic Moments over at The Oliver's Madhouse. Merry Christmas :)


 

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Christmas Spirit Quest

Yesterday was December 1st, so it's officially the beginning of the Christmas Season. I know it's "the thing" nowadays to say how much you're not into Christmas, how much you aren't moved by it, don't like the commercialisation of it, or just plain simple don't like it. I have made it no secret that I love Christmas. I get teary eyed watching each and every commercial on TV (the Nexus one had me in actual tears), I love walking around London like the tourist that I am oohing and aahing whenever I see a tree or some lights, I love the commercial present buying crazy run, I love how everything looks just a tad more fun and smiley and cheerful in the middle of another cold spell. When it's getting dark even before the clock shows four pm, you need some fairy lights in your life.
Also, and this might explain some of it - it is my fourth Christmas. In total. We never celebrated Christmas when we were living in Israel, and we got to Gibraltar two days before Christmas eve 2009, so our first ever Christmas was in 2010. I am like a child when it comes to Christmas. The way I see it, I have about 5 more years of Christmases before my boys will both be to old and too teenagery to get excited about it, and I am too old to care that I'm not behaving according to the norm (I am rarely in the norm anyway so I would probably have to stop doing everything if I cared). I embrace the Christmas with all my heart. I start shopping in October, and by the time December arrives I have all my gifts ready at home and only buy the small things, I listen to the music 24/7, I put the tree up on December 1st (because Hidai won't put it up sooner).
But not this year. This year I somehow lost my Christmas spirit. Hidai says it's because we've reached Christmas so tired and after a (very) long year filled with trials and obstacles that it's no wonder all I want to do is sleep. This year has been tough, and we still have one piece of the puzzle we need to fix and won't be able to before Christmas, and today we had another meeting with Yon's advisor to basically make sure everything is progressing nicely and that Yon will get his Partially Sighted certificate soon, and on Friday we have Ron's parent-teacher conference which wouldn't have been something to worry about in regular years but this year isn't as regular as we would have liked, and on Thursday I am finally going to meet my doctor to see what my MRI results were. If you put all this together you know what you get - less than Christmas.
So I decided to go on a Christmas Spirit Quest. How do you get into the Christmas spirit when all you want to do is curl up in bed until, lets say, May (well maybe not May. That's my birthday and this year I will be old, so lets say July)?
1. Take Children to Supermarket. We took the kids to Sainsbury's to start buying silly things, and also because we didn't have milk, but mainly to watch the supermarket get all Christmasy. I love supermarkets, some of my fondest memories of Gibraltar are from the Morrisons. Unfortunately I don't get to go to the supermarket as much here because unlike in Gibraltar, I don't live across the road from the it and can take the cart home with me, and unlike in Israel I don't have a car, so I do most of my shopping online. But for Christmas I made everyone take the bus and go to Sainsbury's to buy 60 pounds worth of Christmas knickknacks and milk.

 

 

2. Tour Oxford Street. Because a) can you really beat the lights at Oxford Street? and b) these lights and that street, more than anything else in the world make me smile. Hidai and I came to London for our honeymoon. We arrived one day before Christmas eve 2003. We spent the whole week we were here in and around Oxford street. It was when we fell in love with London, and every time I see those lights, which were the first thing I saw in London, I fall in love with London just a little bit more.

 






3. Have a Drink at Starbucks, because for me nothing beats their holiday range. And this year they've added an absolutely divine orange-mocha to the range. It's like they've bottled Christmas in a red cup. Ok so that's a slight exaggeration, but it is very yummy and immediately makes me feel cheerful.

4. Go to a Christmas Event. Because as a stay-at-home-mum, or a work-from-home-blogger or whatever label I fall under these days, the one thing I don't have is a proper Christmas party. Hidai insists on working for companies who don't throw proper bring your partner along Christmas parties, you can't really count the kids Christmas parties at school, and it feels a bit odd to dress up in a fancy dress and drink some bubbly with myself at home. So no Christmas party. Britmums were nice enough to recognise this need and organised what you can only call a work-Christmas-Party only with no one getting royally drunk and sleeping with the boss. There was wine, there was music, there was so much fabulous food from Morrison's (whom I already confessed I miss terribly ever since I've left Gibraltar), everyone were dressed smartly, I had good friends and new friends to talk to, and there was also what I assume was a very good explanation from Morrison's head chef - Neil Nugent about how to make the perfect turkey. Being a vegetarian the moment he talked about shaking the bird by its legs was the moment he lost me, but everyone else looked really impressed. As I will be either delegating turkey duty to my mum or ordering one from Marks & Spencer, so I spent most of the talk trying to see if I know anyone in the crowd. I always find blogging events funny this way - you know so many people virtually, but then you wouldn't recognise most of them if they stood right in front of you waving a red hankie. Add to that the fact that names are really not something I am good with and an overall social awkwardness, and what you get is me mostly looking like a complete idiot trying to see what was written on everyone's tag names without appearing too obvious about it. In the end out of 80 bloggers there, I talked to six, and what's even sadder is that for me it was a huge accomplishment. But putting my social inaptness aside, it was so much fun to get to go out and have a Christmas party in the middle of the day just because. And we got a very generous (and yummy) goody bag (already ate all of it. Who am I kidding, we ate all of it on the same day), and the opportunity to take some leftovers home (which I declined because the thought of having to travel on two tubes with a polar-bear made me envision some horror stories, most of them including said bear all over my clothes).

 

 

5. Bake Loads of Tasty Things. I baked and fried and cooked, and basically I have not left my kitchen for anything other than laundry. I made tiny baked doughnuts, quick yeast-less doughnuts, real doughnuts, latkes and mini-pancakes. All within the span of four days. And I also bought some Sainsbury's doughnuts and real bakery ones. If I see another doughnut until next December it's too soon. Ok you twisted my arm. I can eat a Krispy-Kreme one. But just because you insist.

6. Put on Lights, Decorations and Tree. This year it took us three days to finish the whole thing - On Friday we put all the lights up, on Saturday Hidai put the tree up, and on Sunday we decorated the house and tree, and now it looks like Christmas has exploded all over our house. Every year I fantasise about a nice grown-up tree with tasteful decorations that we've collected around the world and are of course in matching colours. You know, like you see everywhere on Pinterest. What I have in reality is slightly different. Well, it's a tree, but here ends the resemblance. The kids think the idea is to have no empty branches on the tree and as a result we have a mismatched array of beautiful baubles and keepsake I bought over the years, Arsenal baubles (we are at 5 at the moment. But somehow there seems to be more every year), regular baubles and kids school artworks. It does not look like something you would put on Pinterest, and also for some bizarre reason - does not photograph well. But it does light up the room.

 

7. Listen to Christmas Music. Because nothing puts you in the mood quite as much, right? I think so, but Hidai - who is for diversion in his music for some reason - claims you can't listen to the same 10 songs over and over again for a month, even if they are done by different artists. I have no idea what he is talking about. THe iTunes claims that our Christmas playlist includes 226 songs at the moment, so they must be different. No?

8. Plan a big Christmas Dinner. Because that's just who we are. Big family dinners. Yes, I see the irony of the situation, but the truth is nothing screams holidays better than planning a meal for 11 people. Where will we put all of them in our shoebox of an apartment? Not sure. Might have to invade the neighbours.
9. Buy Egg-Nog, and drink festive coffee at home. Last year I managed to buy one carton of eggnog before Ocado ran out. This year I already have three, and of course they haven't run out. I know you can (and maybe are supposed to) make it yourself, but it took me awhile to even get used to the idea of drinking something that has "egg" in its name, and the thought of actually making one is too much for me, I prefer to think of it as having metaphorical eggs only. But anyway, it makes every coffee a tiny Christmas celebration.
10. Buy All the Gifts. Because even if it doesn't put you in the Christmas mood, at least you'll have all the presents.

With every one of those actions, I felt Christmas becoming more and more real, and if that's not enough we decided to have an Elf on the Shelf this year, only in our house it became an Arsenal Santa in the Shelf and Yon took a shine to it, so it spends most of it's time being dragged around the house together with an iPad or a few animals...

We still have the kids play and party at school, the building's tree and lights ceremony, Yon's outreach program Christmas party, guests, our tenth wedding anniversary and my parents arriving. All that before Christmas. Did I find my Christmas spirit? to be honest I am not sure. But I think I'm getting there. And if I forget it for a second, I have the 20 Amazon packages arriving every single day to remind me...
Egg-nog coffee anyone?

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The magic of Christmas

I was very happy to be invited to the Tesco Christmas in July event that was in, well, July. Actually, that's not entirely correct. When I got the email inviting me to the event I was standing on the side line of a football pitch looking at Ron playing football and Yon playing with imaginary animals, there were people around. I literally jumped up and down. Might have been a few times. Because it was my first event ever, and because it's Christmas. Now for all who doesn't know, let's get this out of the way at the beginning - I am Jewish. We are all Jewish. And we celebrate Christmukah every year since we left Israel. You can find my very long (and I think really good) explanation of why we chose to celebrate Christmukah in this post I wrote a few years back. But if you want the short version, it's what I explained to Ron last year when we were walking home from the dentist and saw the first decorated tree of the year (yes, we are nosey and we peek through people's windows) - everyone needs a bit of Magic in their lives.
If I had to choose one sentence to sum up my life, it will probably be something else, but this will be one of the top five for sure. I believe in Magic. I know you are nodding your head in pity, I know you think I am naive, that people my age should be wiser, should be more cynical, should at least not advertise their childish and immature beliefs to everyone on the internet. Well, first of all, in my head I am the only one who reads the blog anyway, and I already know all my quirks. Second of all, I really do believe that everyone needs a little Magic in their lives.
And Christmukah is the embodiment of it.

So for me, being invited to an event that meant spending a few hours in a room surrounded by beautiful Christmasy things, and get a chance to look at all the Christmas decorations, have a tree, eat Christmas food and just be in the middle of Christmas, was like, I want to say going to church / synagogue if you are religious, but I think it might be constructed as disrespectful, so I am going with - like taking Ron to an Arsenal match. I was NOT disappointed. The Tesco people worked really hard and put on a great Christmas show for us, complete with all the trimmings (I was a bit disappointed that they didn't made us all wear red Santa hats while walking around though...). They worked on it for months, it took them a week to set up the room itself, and I don't even dare to think how long it took the poor soul who glued all those magnificent biscuits houses.

 

The cake guys (we talked only to the sweets people) told us they start working on the Christmas offerings come February. In fact January is the only month of the year that isn't christmas for them. I was torn - on the one hand they have Christmas all year round, but on the other hand maybe it's like working in a chocolate factory and you get tired of it after a while. Would you want to have Christmas all year long? Isn't some of the magic in that it only comes around for a few short weeks (okay three months, but you know what I mean)? I don't know. I asked, and they told me they still love Christmas, but I think it takes the magic and fun out of it...
I had to admit though, that everything looked really delicious (my taster said it really was very tasty)

One. Of the several. Sweets tables.

Polar bear cupcakes! 

I don't know if you are like me, but every time I see that red & white I don't think football, but Christmas, and it makes me smile. 

I guess it's the whole light out of darkness thing. We have a very nice saying in Hebrew about the fact that a tiny light can light up all the darkness, but all the darkness in the world can't put out a tiny light. I love this saying, I tell it to the kids whenever I can, because I think that's what life is all about, what Christmas, Hannukah, love, religion are all about - that tiny light. I have to quote my favorite book of all times, The Lord Of The Ring here, to say that "Yet dawn is ever the hope of men". For me, Christmukah is about believing in that light, that dawn, that Magic.

 

My love of Magic doesn't make me less aware of the fact that life is pretty damn hard. We all have to struggle most every hour of every day. Some with money, some with love, some with health. Some with more than one category. My 2013 hasn't been an easy one, and I so wanted it to be. The truth is I am writing this post in July (but it is published today for the first time) and I had one hell of half a year. I don't really see it calming down. It never does. When we lived in Gib we had a wall-sticker about learning to dance in the rain. I think we should buy a new one (ah, a great Christmas gift!) to remind ourselves to embrace it all, because in the end life is the journey, or what happens when you are busy making other plans, or what we are all trying to survive.
But every year, for one month, life looks just a little bit different. The world looks more colourful, the light shine just a tad brighter, the love is a bit stronger, and you can feel it in the air - the hope.
The Christmas.

This post is part of the BritMums project with Tesco

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My firstie

Last Friday I had an adventure. To say that my life is usually quite boring will be the understatement of the year. I lead the stereotype of a suburbs-stay-at-home-mum life, and I don't even live in the suburbs. I live a short tube ride away from all the interesting places, but the truth is it usually turns out that I spend most of my days gazing outside the window thinking to myself (because I have no other person - adult or child to talk to) that London is as far away from me now as it was when I lived in Gib, or even in Israel. I have so many excuses to give for why that is - you see, I have two kids to look after, Yon goes to nursery until 12 so I don't have enough time, when I go into town I have a tendency to spend money I don't really have, I need to write, and of course how can we forget the best one - I have laundry to do. It doesn't matter the excuse I use, the end result is always the same - I stay at home for days or weeks on end. It's not that I mind it too much actually, I love my life (after all, I chose them and shaped them to suit me) and frankly trying to have non-football or animals related fun with an eight years old who's already started perfecting his teenage growling and bored/broody looks, and a four years old who doesn't like new places, doesn't like not touching things, and does like to annoy us to no end, isn't an easy task. When we just arrived to London, and I had the kids home with me, I tried taking everyone out for Friday Adventures, which Hidai hated because for him Friday is a regular work day, and the kids used as an excuse to behave badly because, well, because they are kids. We did get to see and do plenty of things, but I can't really say we enjoyed most of them. And after a few (unsuccessful) tries I let it go. It's too much money and effort to NOT have fun.
But if you have to know the truth, sometimes I miss going to the supermarket. Taking the risk of sounding extremely weird here, I love supermarkets, I used to love going to Morrisons when we lived in Gib. There is nothing like walking around aisle 8 where they put all the "interesting" things :). I do my shopping online these days. And not in Morrisons.
Not really the point of the post, just a tid bit to make you look funny at the screen and go Morrisons?! Did she really just say that?!
The point was, that adventures are few and far between.

And last Friday I got a chance at one. I was one of the (not so many) bloggers invited to attend Tesco's Christmas in July event, through BritMums blogging community.
Now, some of you are heading for the close button because, who wants to hear about Christmas in July? well, the truth is, no one. Why would I tell you about products, food or gifts you'll forget by next week, not to mention October? No. I will tell you about me. Much more interesting. For me at least.
You see, this was the first event I got invited to through the blog (okay, let's be honest here, it was the first "work" related event I have ever gotten invited to, if you are not counting Hidai's Christmas party, which I most certainly don't). It was also my first publicity event. Ever. I never thought I would be invited to join one. I mean why would I? Who cares what I think? (hint - not my kids).
The evite (I used evite in a sentence!) said - as I read it, this is a stressful-potentially-heart-attack-inducing few hours in a posh hotel that you've never heard of in the middle of London, and there will be a film crew so your humiliation will be recorded and broadcast to the world. I swear to you, it's word to word what was written there.
On the other hand, it's Christmas. There was no chance I will not go.
So obviously I needed to devise a game plan. First thing is first - I took Hidai with me. I usually try not to leave home without him. Second thing, I rummaged through my closet until I found clothes of the  non jeans kind, and put on my fancy make-up and jewellery. I even had on my "work" heels.
I was a nervous wreck. I forgot the name of my blog. I think the drinks guy (there was a drinks guy, with uniform) was laughing at me. I didn't know anyone. I wasn't sure what to do, who I was talking to, what's my name, and what is my blog about.
And if that isn't enough (why isn't it never enough I wonder), a very nice Australian girl named Claire approached me and wanted to know if I will be willing to answer some questions for the thing? commercial? three hour long film? she was doing for the Tesco YouTube channel.
Me.
I can't even talk to a regular person without hyperventilation. I tend to forget all the answers whenever I need to give them. I am pathologically shy. I have a funny accent. I am Jewish, what do I know of Christmas???
So naturally I said yes.
Because I also don't like to disappoint people. But deep down I was really hoping she will forget about me. And so, we wandered around the room? hall? ballroom? filled with Christmasy things and very nice people who absolutely terrified me, trying to find what I will write about come Christmas shopping time. Mine isn't a life-style / product reviews / foodie blog. And really, nobody even reads it.
Yes, the numbers do lie.
As it happened Claire didn't forget about me, and after she finished assuring me for three hundred times that it will be fine, shoved a microphone down my dress, and repositioned me for what felt like at least twenty minutes (about three in reality), I actually went for it and interviewed for the first time in my life. Did I mention I am camera shy? I don't even like it when I have to pose for stills...
I talked about Christmukah (Christmas & Hannuka), what you do in Hannuka, how we celebrate Christmas, and told the whole world (or the Tesco's YouTube channel subscribers) that we eat chocolate for breakfast on Christmas Day.
It was all over in a few short minutes (I needed three takes on the first question. At least nobody yelled "cut!"), and though I swear the whole room was looking at me funny, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. And now as a seasoned interviewee, I have some tips Claire told me, and I will tell you for whenever you next need to interview - look at the interviewer and not the camera, smile, and integrate the question within your answer.
And wear clothes where they can easily shove the microphone.

Claire said they won't cut out all my bits for some reason, so you'll be able to see me whenever the ads for Christmas start coming out. Don't worry, I'll probably put it here. Or they will cut me out.
Thank God Yon's schedule is a great excuse for everything, so after one more person I talked to without knowing who they were, a glass of lemonade and a last glance around, we made our retreat in a very dignified way.
As we were walking around Regent St. towards the tube, marvelling at London in the sun, at the turists, at life, it really struck home how much my life had changed in the last year, how much I've accomplished.
And also, I got a goody bag.

* Just so you know, this post was not sponsored by anyone other the one who sponsors all my posts - Hidai :)

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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.

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