Christmas and Boxing Day

25 December

We decided to embrace the whole English Christmas experience so we started the day by walking up the road to St. George’s Church for Christmas morning service. 

What an experience! This wasn’t the formal, stuffy Anglican church I expected.  The church was packed with families, lots of kids, lots of sparkly outfits but also lots of sweatshirts.  In fact, the pastor was wearing a lime green sweatshirt with “Jesus” emblazoned on it and reading from an iPad. She was assisted by the youth minister who was in jeans and a hoodie.  They made the service really fun for the kids.  At one point the minister invited kids to come up and bring the present they had received from Santa.  They were then interviewed (handheld mic in hand) and got to talk about their toy.  Throughout the service kids were running all around the church; one two-year-old decided that the alter was the place to be so planted herself there.  The minister knew each child by name.  They played “pass the parcel”, a game in which a package is passed around to musical accompaniment. When the music stopped, the person holding the parcel unwrapped the first layer of wrapping revealing a new layer. They then described the layer beneath. “It’s stars. Like the star in the east that the wise men followed”, “It says ‘It’s a boy’, and Jesus was the baby boy that arrived on Christmas.” It was chaotic and noisy and delightful.  We went back to the house and I headed to the kitchen to prep Christmas dinner, which is traditionally served in mid-afternoon.  I had forgotten how difficult it is to cook in someone else’s kitchen. The oven was particularly puzzling.  I figured it our finally, but it’s a convection oven and I didn’t have a meat thermometer, so kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t kill us with undercooked chicken, which I chose instead of the usual Christmas turkey. It all worked out and I didn't burn the house down. (Whew!) We watched some Christmas telly: Tabby McTat, a kid’s show about a singing cat, then the King’s Christmas message.  I was happily surprised by how warm and sensitive he seemed.  Great video clips, lots of attention paid to the values shared by the major religions in a time of conflicts around the world. Environmental themes addressed as well.  Here’s a BBC summary, if you’re interested. A bit later I broke out the Fortnum and Mason Christmas pudding and accompanying cognac butter sauce.  Delicious!  

December 26 is Boxing Day in England. Generally thought to be a Victorian tradition, it’s when the wealthy boxed up their leftovers and gave them to the laborers and the poor.  It is now mostly a shopping day, akin to black Friday.  We chose to take another walk in the Ashstead Common. Once again, the mud proved to be an obstacle so we decided to try a different route.  Along the way we came upon a sign offering carriage rides. We waited at the end of the lane and the sweetest pony came into view.

Her name is Lily, and her owners offer carriage rides a couple of times a year. There was something so adorable about this little carriage and the pony with her feathered headpiece. Eschewing the muddy path, our walk then took us down the main road to a pub on Bruce’s list, but it turned out to be closed, as is virtually everything on Boxing Day. That evening, we watched a show called “Charles III: The Coronation Year”. Meant to be a documentary, it was a masterpiece of PR. 

As this is a bit of a dull post I’ve invited Bruce to write a bit about some of the pubs he’s visited.

The Silver Cross, Trafalgar Square, London.

First licensed in 1674 as “The Garter” due to it being a brothel. In 1999 the BBC discovered that the license granted by King Charles I had never been revoked, so the tavern is still considered to be a brothel. At some point in time the murdered body of a prostitute was found in the tavern and the body unceremoniously disposed of. The ghost of the murdered prostitute is said to still haunt the tavern to this day.

The Barley Mow, Marylebone, London

Established in 1791, it is the oldest pub in the Marylebone district of London, and one of the last remaining “free houses” in the center of the city. It has many remaining original features including two “pawning booths” at the bar. These tiny rooms can comfortably accommodate 2 to 3 persons. They are an example of how the Victorians loved cozy drinking spaces.

The Lamb, Bloomsbury, London

Established in 1779. Named after William Lamb, who in the 16th century built a conduit to bring water to the local community. Another drinking den of Charles Darwin, it was also the meeting place of the Bloomsbury Group – influential writers who met here in 1920s London to exchange ideas. It was also the venue for lover’s trysts between poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.