Hee!

Before I start, happy new year (: I hope you had a nice new years eve. I had, but that’s for my next post. This blog is about the event before, Christmas.

On the first day of December the preparation for Christmas started. They picked up all the Christmas decoration from Nana Sue’s house. The next day, the Christmas tree arrived.

We decorated the tree with all the lights and Christmas balls and the first greeting cards arrived.

I am living close too Reigate, Reigate is known as a place where rich people live. So Father Santa didn’t arrive by sledge, he arrived by helicopter. This was a big event.

Elf on the shelf, is something big as well here in England. It is a elf who is doing naughty things in your house. For example: Eating chocolate, hiding toys or sleeping in my bed. But don’t touch him! He will tell Father Santa and you won’t get any presents!

When I met with Milou in London on the 9^th of December, London was already in Christmas. We could already go to Winter Wonderland and all the beautiful Christmas lights were on.

There were lots of decorations on the building of the shops as well. Lots of lights in the shape of Christmas trees. In the windows of the shop we saw funny decorations, like a squirrel drying his tail with a hair dryer.

The Friday before Christmas I did the normal stuff in the mornings as usual. I did a quick breakfast and tried to get the kids in their clothes as quick as possible. Then homework with Alex and after that I jumped into the train. Of to Gatwick airport!

When I arrived there I didn’t know where to go. I waited by the arrivals but after a while I still didn’t saw anything about the flight from my parents. I thought that I must been on the wrong place, I realised I was in the South terminal and not in the North one. So I asked someone how to get to the North one. And I started to run to the right terminal, I was already too late. But when I came there they were still not there. So I waited and waited, trying to get in touch with them. At one point I heard people talking Dutch and I finally got a message from my brother. They where waiting for the passport control but it was super busy there….

In the mean time, my nails were gone and I was starving because I was so super nervous. I would finally see my parents again after 3 months! When I saw my mum I run to her and we did big hugs and little tears.

When we arrived in Redhill, I showed them, of course, West Central and we did walk in Redhill and Reigate. They met my new family The Woodalls. We had an English Christmas dinner together specially made by Woody. We had Turkey, minced pie and all that stuff. It was very funny with the typical English Christmas crackers.

You both got a side of the cracker and you need to pull it, in the middle is a bit of firework stuff. So you hear a bang! In the inside is a crown, the ones that we are wearing, a bad joke and a little present.

In the night we took the train to London. The hotel we had was in Kensington. It was not the best hotel ever…. But hey, there was a bed and we had breakfast.

In London we walked a lot and we saw lots of things, Portobello market:

Famous buildings:

British museum, famous by the stealing’s from Egyptian.

On Christmas day London was totally empty. They were not working at the undergrounds, no red busses in the street and all the shops were closed. Nearly all the food shops and cafes were closed as well. So we thought that we might have a change in China Town. But when we arrived there, the good new was that there were restaurants open but we saw those big lines in front of the restaurants.

No option… But we found a Pret that was open so we could have lunch there.

For dinner we went to Jamies Italian. There was a buffet, kind of all you can eat. The most weirdest thing was that we were surrounded by Dutch people. The food was delicious!

In England there is only one Christmas day. The next day is called Boxing day. All the shops are having a big sale and special offers. In Oxfordstreet, the biggest shopping street in London, where was a big crowd of people. They all had trolley suitcases so they could easily take there new items home.

My mum and I needed to shop here of course (:

On Wednesday it was time to say goodbye. In the train to Redhill I didn’t want the train to arrive. I wanted to stay with them. In Redhill we had lunch together and they said goodbye to The Woodalls.

Then it was time for us to say goodbye…

A nice and beautiful but hard times was over…

But I got new energy to make the best of the rest of this year!

Lots of Love,

Evelien