Christmas Day and Boxing Day

(from Carol's journal)

Christmas day was a mixture of emotions. Being at church was comforting and yet I was wistful as I saw families gathered together and noticed the absence of others who had traveled elsewhere to be with their loved ones. Everyone was cordial and more, yet we felt alone because we weren’t with our families.

Many of them had brought small wrapped gifts that they passed to their friends. We did receive two gifts which made us feel not so left out. Candy in one and homemade gingerbread cookies in the other.

Everyone participated in the program which was Christmas songs and scripture reading. By the time the Relief Society Choir, Priesthood Choir and the family with the Primary children sang, that covered everybody.

I had told the elders that they were welcome to eat dinner with us if they didn’t get a better offer. I just figured they’d be happier being with a family and a decorated house rather than with us in our flat with one decoration. We knew that they wanted to come over and use our computer to skype with their families later in the day, beyond that we didn’t know for sure.

As it turned out they rode home with us after church. Christmas Day is the only day that the buses do not run at all so we had driven to church. Elder Parrett entertained the elders for the 3 plus hours that it took the ham to bake. They must have been quite hungry by the time we ate. They had seconds on the salad, the carrot dish disappeared completely and a quantity of lovely ham was down the hatch along with the rolls.



Although they checked their email using our computer, they decided to skype the next day at another location. I was looking forward to hearing Elder Simon from Georgia speak his native language.

They asked if they could get a ride to the home of our former bishop. That was no problem. But after a few hours they called and asked if we could pick them up from there and take them home. That was a problem. Bill detests driving here at best and refuses to drive in downtown Brighton. As it turns out, at 10 pm on Christmas night with no buses around, it was quite civil. The elders live along the seafront so that’s the way we went and nobody got killed.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day is traditionally a day following Christmas when wealthy people in the United Kingdom would give a box containing a gift to their servants This custom is linked to an older English tradition: in exchange for ensuring that wealthy landowners' Christmases ran smoothly, their servants were allowed to take the 26th off to visit their families. The employers gave each servant a box containing gifts and bonuses (and sometimes leftover food)from Wikipedia

We had been looking forward to our dinner on Boxing Day with a couple from another ward who have been assigned to the Brighton Ward. They live in Seaford which is almost to Eastbourne. That would be around 20 miles from here and it took us an hour and 20 minutes.

We rode the bus since there was bus service, albeit reduced frequency. We enjoyed visiting while the food cooked and heard all about how they really don’t want Prince Charles to be king or rather they really don’t want Camilla to be Queen. Kate and William would be a much better choice.





The duck with orange sauce was quite nice and the vegetables typical of an English meal. Dessert was a Christmas pudding which was full of dried fruit and spices. And cream on top, of course. I have seen the puddings often in the grocery stores but had never bought one.

After that was a real surprise. I had seen gift-wrapped Christmas crackers in the stores, but thought it sounded boring. We soon found out that they aren’t crackers that you eat. They make a popping noise when opened and inside will be a plastic crown and other small treats. The proper way to open them is to cross your arms and grasp the crackers of your neighbors and pull. That’s a tradition that should be exported to America!





Our hosts, the Lawrances.