In America, Christmas starts as soon as Thanksgiving is over, and we enter the "Holiday Season". The Malls start playing christmas carols, houses are festooned with christmas lights, and the stores come up with any excuse for a sale (how about "The Great Second Tuesday in December Sale !")
At school in December, Thomas had learned about many different holiday traditions - Channukah, Kwanzaa, including how the strange English people have this thing called "Boxing Day". In America it is beholden to refer to the "holidays" first rather than Christmas, due to the many different cultures, including those that don't celebrate Christmas.
On the last full day of school, Mrs Smith organised a holiday party, which culminated (after Thomas had cleaved the Pinata with a single blow) with a search for Father Christmas secret sack left overnight.
We collected a huge tree while Dawn was here, and Thomas and Dawn were able help Linda with her mountain of decorations. Linda loves the fact that Christmas ornaments are readily available here, and christmas lights are so cheap. (Latest - Linda comes back from Target on Dec 27th where boxes of 100 lights are selling for 81 cents!).
We woke to snow on Christmas morning - in fact, because Linda was still cleaning the kitchen floor at quarter to one on Christmas Eve, we went to bed with snow falling. Despite the excitement, Thomas tried really hard to stay in bed as long as possible, so didn't rise until around 7.10am. Many presents were opened, much Lego was found. (Right - "Thanks, Uncle David!")
Colin, Debbie and Alex Smith arrived for Christmas lunch, and we managed to enjoy a (mostly) traditional dinner - OK, the sausages tasted of maple syrup, but Debbie made a truly wonderful Christmas pud, and Sally and Roger Huggins supplied Christmas Crackers in one of Thomas' parcels.
