A Bit of Merry Old England

Christmas parcels have started arriving from England, which include chocolate that must be eaten immediately. Come on folks, you can't send me Flakes & Kendal Mint Cake and expect me to wait another ten days before eating them. And really, I'm pregnant and you keep sending me chocolate liqueurs - my absolute favourite. How on earth am I supposed to be a good girl and avoid alcohol when it's wrapped in chocolate for heavens sake! This does not mean I want these parcels to stop - far from it. I can keep the liqueurs till after the baby's born. Craig will end up with a fork in his eye if he so much as touches the cellophane wrapper. I also found a couple of Christmas puds in a parcel from my dad, so dropping big hints on this blog paid off. Crikey I'm devious.

Jack got some traditional thermals from his nana that even have cute little Union Jack labels that say "Made in England". That kind of thing makes me homesick but it's not something you see too much these days is it? It's more likely to say "Made in China" or The Philippines, like those Nick Jr. cartoon underpants I got him that scratched his bottom to shreds and led to the MRSA infection (I'm still hopping mad about that as you can see).

This weekend we took Jack to a Dickensian Christmas event at Ohio Village. He got to meet St. Nick, though he called him Santa Claus the whole time and St. Nick was a bit miffed but life is complicated enough without trying to explain to a toddler the intricacies of all this. A man in a red suit is a man in a red suit. He also got to meet Charles Dickens, who in this case was an Englishman called Roger who'd lived in Ohio 18 years, liked Jameson's and was mad as a hatter. We chatted for a while about England and what we missed. He talked about Wayne Rooney a lot as he loved football. All the while dressed like Dickens - very surreal.

At the event I bought a kit to make a traditional orange pomander with Jack. It's a throw-back to my Girl Guide days before I got kicked out for drinking & smoking (only half kidding). I have fond memories of sitting with my group, making homemade Christmas decorations like the pomander - basically an orange with cloves pushed in and then dried. The smell it gives off is fabulous and very Christmassy. I did however forget how painful it was to push hundreds of cloves into an orange so my poor fingers were killing me but it was worth it. It's now drying on top of the water heater in the basement, unless one of my cats has knocked it off and my dog's eaten it, which wouldn't surprise me. Should make for an interesting walk in the park tonight.