Meanwhile in Chippenham

      Christmas is such a magical time of year. There is so much excitement, pretty lights, and of course family time to look forward to! Since we had to mail gifts home most of our Christmas shopping was done by December 2nd, which since I am normally a procrastinator, it was very refreshing! We really got to enjoy more of the festivities without the normal stress that comes in December. This Christmas was also more special because it was Sam and I's first Christmas as husband and wife. We weren't able to go to Springfield to spend Christmas with our families, since we had just moved in September, which was a bummer but also a blessing. We didn't have to worry about taking a 9 hour flight home, the stress that can come with scheduling equal time with each family and still making time for friends when you are actually home, and of course the difficulty of fitting in every single one of our favorite restaurants while visiting! It was relaxing to stay in our own home and with the wonderful technology we have in the 21st century we were still able to facetime with both of our families. For us it was the best of both worlds, but we know that it was harder for our families not having us there, so hopefully next Christmas we will be able to celebrate in Springfield. We are lucky because Sam's sister, Rachel, and brother-in-law, Josh, live in London so we invited them to the country to spend Christmas with us and we had a blast. Sam and I felt like a real grown up married couple, hosting Christmas in our house just made it feel real, and we both brought in traditions from our childhoods as well as making some of our own traditions!

Hanging our by the fire

     
     We picked Rachel and Josh up from the bus station in New Market, which is a town about 5 miles from us, on December 23rd. It was so exciting to see them! Though they do live in London, we hadn't seen them since October, when they brought Rachel's parents up for a visit, because of their three week trip back to the states. We headed to a local pub to get an early dinner, have a beer and catch up on each others lives. After dinner we headed back to our cottage and gave Rachel and Josh a tour. They loved their country vacation home and of course the loft was a fun place to explore, we even thought about doing Christmas up there! We continued to lounge around the cottage and began to make a grocery list for our traditional British Christmas dinner. It was so nice not to have to worry about going to the store before Rachel and Josh came, or stress about being the only one in the kitchen cooking for everyone. Everyone chipped in and we all worked together to make all the meals, clean up the meals, and that made Christmas more enjoyable for me, Thanks Rach, Josh and Sam for helping! Plus, Rachel had done some research already for traditional British side dishes, which  were amazing!

Posing in the loft

Hanging out in the loft

Rachel isn't scared one bit to be on the ladder her little brother built

Time for Hercules to check out the loft

So many new smells up here!

    
     On Christmas Eve we headed to the store around 10am. Rachel and I decided to go to the British store first, while the boys stayed at home and did manly things like watch The Dark Knight Rises. The town of Mildenhall was crazy busy with traffic, as was the Sainsbury's that we went to, but we made it in and out of the store pretty quickly. We brought the groceries home and joined the boys for lunch at La Houge, our favorite little farm shop/cafe here in Chippenham. We had a delicious lunch and then Rachel and I headed to the American grocery store, just to get a few items that we didn't want to get at the British store (like bacon British bacon is not like American bacon). When we got back to the cottage it was around 2pm which was the facetime date with my family, where we all opened our presents together. Sam was working on making homemade cinnamon rolls and talking with me and my family. While Rachel was baking her minced pies (a British dessert) and Josh was watching The Dark Knight Rises. It was so great to see my family, and watch them open all our presents. I know it wasn't the same as us being there, but it was better than nothing! We were able to talk for about 2 hours and it was nice to be a part of their Christmas. Around 4pm we headed to base for Church, it was hard to pick just one activity to do on Christmas Eve, there were so many options! The Ely Cathedral had a caroling  service at 6:00pm and a midnight mass. The church next to our cottage had a candlelit caroling service at 6pm and I am sure many other local village churches had programs on Christmas Eve. We decided to go to the mass on base, because we were having dinner with our Air Force family, and that's where Sam and I usually go to mass, but before we PCS again we will be attending a Christmas Eve service at the Ely Cathedral, the midnight one, and I cant wait to experience it!

Awkward family photo- Everyone close your eyes

The Baird's before church

The Holbrook's before Church

Rachel doing some cooking

Facetime with my family

They all loved their England shirts!

     
     After church we headed to Christmas Eve dinner at our friends the Ritenours house in Bury St. Edmunds. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed fellow-shipping with everyone there. Rachel and Josh also enjoyed meeting some of our friends. They said we are lucky to have them, which is true! Sam and I have been very blessed to meet so many people, near our age (I am still the youngest officer wife), that we have so much in common with, as I have said before it is like a family and as Lindsey posted on her facebook we were sharing our Christmas Eve dinner with our Air Force family, so true! We were also invited to Christmas dinner as well with some more of our Air Force family, which is very nice, though we had plans on Christmas, it is so great that everyone around here makes sure people have something to do on the holidays and to celebrate together, if you aren't fortunate enough to go home or to have family that lives in London. I cant stress enough how blessed we are! We decided to open one gift a piece on Christmas Eve, which we didn't open them until after midnight so I guess that would've technically been Christmas day. Josh got a harmonica, which he serenaded us with, Rachel got a handmade calendar (Sam made it out of paper) but that is only because the real one wasn't delivered yet, Sam got fireplace tools, and I got a tea kettle!!!! Sam had messed up his first batch of cinnamon rolls, so he worked on another batch and we all ended up staying up talking until about 2am, oh my! Good thing herc-a-calus still came to visit.

Creepy eyes! Through the mail slot

     
     On Christmas morning we started working on our brunch. Rachel chopped up fruit and made fruit dip. Sam finished his cinnamon rolls. I made a breakfast casserole and french muffins. And Rachel also cleaned up while the baking was happening, so there wasn't a huge mess. Again, amazing team work, it is awesome! We had our brunch around 10:45 and it was yummy! After we finished eating and cleaned the kitchen, this is where Josh worked hard, it was time to open presents! We had so many presents! Sam and I had presents to open from Hercules, Sam's family, and Rachel and Josh! Rachel and Josh had presents from us and each other to open. And, due to the slow mail, we still have presents coming from Shauna and Ben! We then opened our stockings, which I was voted the best stocking stuffer ever, but it was all herc-a-claus. After our present opening time we headed out into the town of Chippenham for a jont through the country side. We were saying Merry (or Happy) Christmas to everyone we passed. Our little pub in Chippenham was even open from 12 to 2 and it was packed, though Rachel accused one of our fellow British walkers of being a boozer by asking if he was going to the "bar", man she has lived in England for over a year now you would think she would know the word "pub".

Breakfast casserole

French muffins, served on a Christmas fiesta platter, thanks mom!

Brunch! With red and green fiesta!

Sam's homemade cinnamon rolls, yum! Served on a Christmas fiesta plate my grandma got us, thank you!

Sam passing out presents

Josh thinks Rachel smells so he bought her some perfume

Sam's sister Sarah knitted him a scarf! It looks awesome! He loved it! Thanks Sarah!

Rachel being French in her new hat

Sam couldn't "find" our Christmas wrapping paper...translation since he had nothing to do with the Christmas presents this year he had no idea where the paper was, so he wrapped my present in newspaper. I suppose that is resourceful. This is my Ninja Food Processor, thanks Kevin and Becky!

Josh also got some juggling balls

Outdoor slip on shoes! Yay, now he will stop wearing my Tom's that I have sitting by the door, he was really starting to stretch those out!

All the presents, we must have been good this year!

My AF apron from Sam's mom and Aunt Terry, his Aunt Terry made it, and I love it, thanks!

Josh got a paper airplane book, which he wanted because Sam was getting one.

Santa Claus even visited Hercules

Hand painted Christmas signs, thanks Rachel!

The liqueur we got Josh, it has a walnut flavor

Rachel's poster from her hubby

It wouldnt be Christmas unless Hercules destroyed his new toys!

Hercule's toy from grandma and grandpa Holbrook, he loves it.

We got a hand made picture frame with a picture from our sweet niece, Hazel!

Our walk through Chippenham led us to feed the horses

They loved the carrots

The church behind our cottage

     
     Our main entertainment on Christmas Day was taking "awkward family photos". Josh had found a lot of awkward family photos online, so we decided to try and recreate them. I am sure some of you have seen the pictures of awkward family photos in a email or something, but if you haven't and your bored it is a great thing to google. Anyway, we decided to post a photo that we took on facebook to entertain our friends and family back in the states, so every few hours we posted a new picture. It started to get really crazy when we discovered the "nudifier" AP on our Ipads. Anyway, in case you missed the photos on facebook or your are interested in seeing the before and after here are our photos:

So the awkward family photos begin. We were inspired by a real picture for this photo. We even made a homemade cigarette out of computer paper.

This picture was also inspired by a photograph online.Perhaps its a bit sacrilegious, but it is hilarious.

Josh dreamed this photo up in his head. This is where the nudifying began. You can see this picture "nudified" in the collage below.

Awkward family photo

Prenudifier

Post nudifier

Demon Dog!

Pre nudifier

Post nudifier....are those buns done?

Everyone needs toilet picture

Even Hercules likes to be silly

All of our awkward family photos! These kept us entertained and laughing all day long!

    
       When we weren't taking pictures, we were working on our British Dinner, but again when you have everyone helping prepare dinner it doesn't take so long! Sam worked on the Duck, he steamed it. And yes we had duck, even though I got food poisoning from duck a few months ago, you have to get over your fear sometime, plus I trust my husband. Rachel made bacon wrapped sausages, which is traditionally put around the roast, duck or goose here in England when you serve it. She also made sausage/stuffing balls that were also wrapped in bacon, or had something to do with bacon.We also had roasted potatoes, which was a traditional British side dish, but they roast their potatoes in duck fat, which we found to be gross, so we made them the American way. We had an American salad (because the lettuce was bought on base) and sister Schubert rolls (the best frozen rolls ever). Though, the duck took a little longer than planned, everything for the meal turned out delicious and so far no one has gotten sick! But I wont feel totally safe until I make it through today without being sick, because I would say after three days you are in the clear of food poisoning. After dinner we facetimed with Sam's family. Since Sarah got a mini Ipad for Christmas we talked to her on that while the boys talked to Sam's dad and Tom on Josh's Ipad outside and smoked their cigars. It got a bit ridiculous and mind blowing when we all came inside and got four tablets going, all facetiming the same people, but it was fun to able to see them and talk to them on Christmas Day. Rachel, Josh and I broke in our new game, Domino's (an oldy but a goodie thanks Hercules) while Sam skyped his roommate from college for a bit. Then we watched a Christmas Story, where 50% of the people present fell asleep. I tried to call my mom on Christmas Day but she didn't answer, so Hercules and I sent her a video greeting. Thank you to the Salathe's for taking my mom in on Christmas Day, I didn't want her to be alone, we are very blessed to have such a sweet family as friends and I know my mom is happy that you moved back to Springfield :)

Jesus' seat at our table

Our Christmas dinner, complete with red and green fiesta and British crowns from the crackers!

Our table, complete with the British traditional "crackers"

The duck and bacon wrapped sausages

Cranberry sauce

Bacon wrapped sausage stuffing

Roasted potatoes and the yummy rolls

Josh took a picture of the three main chefs but he cleaned up the mess. We are holding the Christmas crackers

Facetiming Sam and Rachel's family on four different tablets!

Sleeping through a Christmas Story

     
     It is a pretty well known fact that British people don't like to work. They enjoy their holiday's and they take at least two weeks at a time for vacation. If you don't believe me then ask my sister who works in KC but has to call their London office a lot, she says its already hard enough with the 6 hour time difference, but then throw in that they don't like to work and it becomes harder to get things done! Anyway, all that to say two days of holidays isn't enough for the Brits so there is another holiday that falls on December 26th, Boxing Day. Instead of calling Christmas presents, well Christmas presents, they would call them Christmas Boxes. So Boxing Day is where the masters would give their servants Christmas Boxes and then the servants had the day off to go home to their families and give them Christmas Boxes, thus earning the name Boxing Day. They still observe the holiday, though today there aren't a whole lot of servants (except maybe at Buckingham) but it has become another holiday to visit family (typically those you don't see on Christmas Day) and eat left overs. It has also become a big horse racing day, football (soccer) day (where big teams play),  and a day of great sales in the stores. We were planning to drive to Holbrook England and maybe tour a castle in Ipswich, but everything was closed! So we headed to Bury St. Edmunds, a cute town about 20 minutes away, and walked around the stores, Abbey Gardens, and we had a late lunch at a nice pub there, but I don't remember the name. We headed back to the cottage for more snacking, visiting, and of course to break in another new game....The Game of Things (thanks Hercules)! It was a fun day and we finished it off by watching Elf.

Getting read to head to Bury on Boxing Day

Haha America we get another holiday off and you don't!

Cousin-It

We found Hercules' reindeer costume...muhahahahaha

      
     Rachel and Josh had to head out early this morning to catch a bus back to London. Sam left to take them while I stayed in and continued to explore the back of my eyelids. We are so glad that Rachel and Josh live so close! We had a really great time with them and we loved having them visit our Cottage.  Now it just seems empty and quiet around here. Next up for us is leaving for Denmark around 4am tomorrow and spending three days there. Then we will be heading to Rachel and Josh's flat on New Years Eve to ring in 2013 London style! Thanks for reading and I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and we wish you all a Happy New Year!

Love,
Amanda