The GirlAlive Blog

Merry Christmas

This year my husband has been eating mince pies, but I can’t stomach them for some reason. They aren’t bad, but I’m just really not in the mood this year. We pretty much never do the usual British turkey dinner for Christmas because we did that at Thanksgiving. We also almost never have Christmas pudding. So we’ll be doing our own thing. Pork loin and sweet potatoes and bread pudding. Should be good. I’ve been watching the Christmas specials on the British food network, and on the American food network and noting some differences. I’ve also just been thinking in general about the things that are different here at Christmas.

Things I love about British Christmas:

Christmas crackers. Little thingies that pop and there is stuff inside. They’re pretty fun and I’m not even freaked out by the popping noise anymore.

Royal Institute Christmas specials. They do a week of science shows for kids, but they’re usually pretty fun and interesting.

Doctor Who. There’s usually a Christmas episode. It is usually awesome.

Extra days off. There’s Christmas, then there’s Boxing Day and the last place I worked made me take the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s off. And you get January 1st and 2nd off in Scotland.

No one has a big yard, so no one puts up obscene amounts of lights. Therefore, no one notices or cares when I refuse to hang lights on my house.

The outdoor temp is not too bad. I grew up in northern Minnesota, so I’m always into a December where the snot does not freeze inside my nose. But it’s still cold and snowy enough to feel like winter.

Things I hate about British Christmas:

Christmas music. They never seem to listen to any remotely traditional Christmas songs. It’s just the same 4 pop songs over and over again, and they’re all obnoxious. Christmas should be more Harry Connick Jr. and a LOT less Wham!.

Brussels sprouts. Who decided that the vegetable that everyone hates is “festive”? I don’t even hate brussels sprouts, but they are nowhere near tasty enough to deserve to be served for Christmas.

Stilton. They include this blue cheese in every cheeseboard. I mostly love British cheese. But I cannot stomach stilton. It tastes like really powerful moist sweatsock. Only worse. I’d rather eat earwax.

They don’t have hot apple cider here. They don’t have eggnog either, but I’ve never been a huge fan anyway.

My family and friends are not here. I miss my parents and my grandpa and my cousins and my brother and his wife and kids.

Frankensnuggie!

They just started selling Snuggies here in the UK, and holy crap they’re overpriced. It’s like £20. Not going to pay that kind of money, even if I had it. However, my house is cold. Not just slightly drafty. Frozen. So I’ve been dressing like a hobo just to keep from freezing, and a snuggie seems like a good idea. (My usual hanging around the house outfit is 2 long sleeve shirts and a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and a big fluffy skirt with thermal socks and slippers. And it’s still a little cold.)

I bought a fleece blanket from Ikea for £1.69. Then I got some cheap yarn from my stash (80p per ball when I bought it long ago). I knitted around and around in circles until I had some big floppy sleeves. Then I cut holes in the blanket and sewed the arms onto it. Thus is born Frankensnuggie. It is not pretty, but I am warm and I can still type.

The Weeks of Internetlessness

Tuesday, November 24, around 8:30pm, my husband knocked a glass of water off his desk and onto the wireless router. It was somewhat inevitable, since he likes to stack everything precariously as if life is a giant game of Jenga. So, no internet.

The next morning husband called our ISP, TalkTalk. They told him they couldn’t do anything unless he was home to test the connection. He explained that that is stupid because we just need a new router cause ours is toasted. They refused to go off script and use logic, so he had to come home from work early to call them. (I couldn’t do it because the account and passwords and everything are in his name.) They spent an hour making him jump through hoops to prove that the connection from their end was fine and it wasn’t just the bad weather, and the problem was the DRIPPING ROUTER THAT SMELLS LIKE BURNING. On his fourth customer service rep, he found one that would finally order us a new router. They said we’d have it in about 5 working days.

Saturday, November 28. Spent 2 hours on the bus to get a few minutes at an internet cafe. Just enough time to read a few emails and check Facebook and reassure my family and friends that I was not dead, just disconnected.

Wednesday, December 2. A week since the last contact with TalkTalk, and there’s no router. Husband calls them back to ask what’s up and they say that the order just went through that day and would be sent out the next day. We could expect it in about 5 working days. In a complete rage, husband went to ebay and ordered a TalkTalk router from some guy.

Friday, December 4. Ebay router arrives. There is no driver software included and none of our computers will recognize it. The helpful suggestion from Windows was that we should download the device drivers from the internet. Thanks Microsoft. So helpful.

Sunday, December 6. My bed broke. No relation to the internet problems, but annoying nonetheless. I really don’t ever want another bed from Ikea. How am I supposed to sleep soundly when it is like the 4th time I’ve suddenly had no bed where there was previously bed aplenty?

Tuesday, Dedember 8. Wireless router package from TalkTalk finally arrived. Also, my dinner exploded in the microwave. I’ve never seen so much soup spread over every inch of a microwave before. After cleaning the microwave and finishing dinner, husband got the new router hooked up.

Things I learned while off the internet:

I have hundreds of computer games in my house, and nearly all of them refuse to work with Windows Vista.
We have the Food Network in the UK now! Not all of the shows from the US Food Network, but a good number of them, including Iron Chef America. *happy dance*
SimCity works on my computer.
SimCity is somewhat addictive.
Wait until you know what you’re doing in SimCity before wasting the town name “Funkytown”. Cause I totally wish I had saved that for my good city.
I go through all 5 stages of grief repeatedly when I am disconnected from the internet.
When the internet is reconnected, I am immediately happy, and my husband is immediately grumpy because as it turns out, his computer is still slow and kind of crappy, which is more noticeable when you have an internet connection.