The weather outside is frightful...

Christmas in England 2009. Our last one. We were looking forward to some good English fun this Yule. The weather promised a white christmas and there were the markets, Father Christmas sightings and winter Ales to find!

Last year, we had a fantastic time at the Ingleborough Cave and Santa's Grotto. So, we thought we'd check out White Scar Cave this year. It is on the opposite side of the Ingleborough massif. We drove over an hour out to the cave and, the first sign of the impending 'underwhelmation' was in the parking lot. There were only a couple of cars there, though we were too excited to notice at the time. This particular cave had a set up where you told the guy on the entrance your children's names, what they want for Christmas and any message you wanted Father Christmas to deliver. This was then telephoned to the business end of the deal. So exciting... right?

Well we managed the 150 yard walk (think 5 minutes) into the cave, where we were met by the attendant, who took us another 40 yards (2 minutes) to Santa's plywood house. We got there just in time to hear him tell the boys in front of us that "you lot are just barely on the line for being good" hm... We went in next and the girls told Santa they wanted a little reindeer and Pink Sparkly Hoola-Hoops. (Surprise, Mama and Da -hope you can find those in the next few weeks!) Santa then told the adults:

"I like Sherry, Wine, Ale or Whisky with my cookies. It doesn't matter. It will all be nice and I burn so many calories on Christmas night that it won't affect me at all."

A bit weird for Santa, right?
Time to go!

After all that effort, the presents ended up being to box of Cadbury Chocolates.

We went to a couple of Christmas markets in the area. York had a nice market with food stalls and some music. There was a festival of Ice Sculptures -which every child that passed by felt the need to touch. Cold hands!! We also revisited the Leeds Christkindlmarkt this year. But, it was a bit smaller and the world's fastest carousel was a little slower.

The girls' Christmas plays were well done again this year.
Molly gave a rousing choral performance in her show.

And Sandy was a very convincing Angel
in her school's adaptation of the Nativity.

But, the big star this Christmas was the weather! It started snowing in early December and kept on going through the month. This has been the longest, coldest winter yet.

And the snow was dry, kind of like in Colorado. The whole family had sledging contests -and Sandy even managed to convince her Head Teacher/Principal to race down the school hill with her one day. Sam quickly figured out that those old snowboard pants of his might have been useful!

I lost count of the number of snow ball fights we had (Sam wins the goon prize for making two kids cry with snowballs to the face- one of which was his daughter).

We even used some fancy flavors to make real 'snow cream'

(Molly's Lemon Snow Cream won the taste contest)

And we can't forget about building snowmen. After a visit to our neighbors who said they hadn't seen our snow men yet, Sam went home and built a 4 foot high ziggurat (I had to ask Sam myself -that's an ancient terraced pyramid ) and accompanying snow volcano.

Oh yes. It is complete with ritual sacrifice scenes.

The neighbors saw it, packed up and left for Cyprus early.

Christmas morning dawned white and cold. The reindeer left hoof-prints in the snow and Santa's magic left glittery sparkles all over the living room. The girls made out like bandits. They loved all the cards and gifts! (Dearest Megan, when your daughter is 3 or 4, remember that we will most definitely pay you back for the lovely 'gift of music' -don't worry, we're sure she'll love the ear-piercing whistles as much as our girls have!)

We bundled up and had drinks with friends, then headed back home to our jammies for the remainder of the cold day by the fire with some homemade egg nog and our new Christmas movies!!!

The snow has stuck around through the end of December with forecasts for more. Sam tried to get out in the hills for his Christmas hikes: there was so much snow that he had to go east on the Moors instead of in the Dales. I tried to get out and hit the post-Christmas sales... but my car just got stuck in the driveway. For two whole days. (ugh.)

And the snow keeps coming. We are under a severe snow warning for the next couple days. We just hope that it doesn't interfere with our Portugal trip!!!

One last lovely story of this Christmas holiday is attending the Aladdin Panto. Last year we saw Cinderella and our favorite character was Buttons: "Hello... Buttons!" Well, we were all thrilled to see that Buttons came back as Aladdin's brother: Wishee-Washee :) always delightful and full of giggles for everyone. We sat in the box seats, right above the stage... and with that posh set of seats came some good surprises. Abaneezer, (think Jafar) spotted us looking down at him during one of his scenes and the next thing we know, he's climbed up to our little room! There were looks of horror from Sandy as he continued to growl at her throughout the scene and Molly kept scowling and hollering at him for being too daft to see that "the lamp is right there!!!" It was fantastic. Then to top it off, Buttons later came running through to our area and shocked us all with a little jump and a dance -priceless. And of course, cameras are forbidden during the performances, so we just have to hope our memories don't fade too quickly.

Happy Christmas? absolutely.

Happy New Year? In London? Big Fireworks?

well... no. We were all at home sound asleep by 9:30.

We're nearly finished packing up for Portugal

and we leave first thing tomorrow morning!!

(no snow for a whole week -just 65 & sunny... so we hope)

~xoxo~