Christmas Starts Early in England

Ahh, Christmas. That most wonderful time of the year. Now if only York would stop hitting almost 60 degrees in the afternoon so that we can see it all covered with snow! While in the States, the unofficial start of the holiday season is the day after Thanksgiving, it starts about a week earlier here since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving. The city of York kick started the holiday season last Thursday with the First Night Festival, which of course we had to go to.

Buildings were lit up and fairy lights were on the trees.

Shops were also open late, and the outdoor market will be selling Christmas gifts & craft items everyday until late.

And for the kiddies, there's a baby carnival with three really lame rides- a tiny carousel, a train that goes around in a circle, and cars that go around in a circle. Hope you like circles kids. But the booths had some cool stuff to look at, including these really cute finger puppets. Rachel bought some for her 2 year old nephew and we had a lot of fun picking out which ones she got.

In addition to "normal" animals like lions, tigers, monkeys and cows, there were some fun ones like hermit crabs, seahorses, and octopi. There were also vendors selling a lot of woodwork, jewelry, cheese, candy, t-shirts, knit sweaters/hats, etc.

In mid-December, York hosts the Festival of Angels. On First Night, there was a preview of the ice sculpture to come during the festival of angels. Plus all the store windows are all decked out for Christmas, including the Disney Store and the Jorvik Viking Centre.

How cute is that? In case you were wondering, you can in fact buy Viking-themed Christmas gear, including runic ornaments and Santa Viking hats (basically a red felt santa hat stuck on top of a horned Viking helmet.) Anyway, we checked out the outdoor ice rink that opened that night, but passed on skating since it wasn't really cold enough yet and the ice was melting pretty fast. The few people out there were kind of skating in puddles. So we grabbed Italian hot chocolate (what can I say, I'm a total sucker for thick, dark chocolatey deliciousness. Nobody does food like the Italians) and headed out to listen to some Christmas tunes played by a local wind band around the Christmas tree in the square (it was windy, the tree isn't quite as Charlie Brown-ish as it looks.)

We also saw a parade of little ones with glowing stars and their parents led by Santa. I'm not really sure what the significance of the parade was, but it was kind of cute. It looked like the kids decorated their own stars because the colored patches were different on each one.

Churches were lit up in purple (the liturgical color of the Advent season), and even the Minster got involved.

So fun stuff :) Next weekend, there is the St Nicolas Fayre, with more outdoor shopping marts to peruse, as well as a Medieval market. I have no idea what will be at the medieval market, but I'm intrigued to find out more! Then in December, the International Christmas Fayre arrives in Parliament Street, so that will be fun to check out too. York does all kinds of stuff for Christmas- it likes to claim that its the best destination in the UK for the season. Judging by the number of tourists, I'd say that's probably accurate. The number of tourists had dropped down after October, but I guess quaint English Christmas has a lot of appeal.

This weekend, I headed north to visit Wearmouth & Jarrow, the "one monastery in two places" most famous for being the home of Bede, English medieval author/historian extraordinaire. So we checked out the ruins of the monastery at Jarrow, the World of Bede museum, and THEIR Christmas fayre. But more on that + pictures in the next entry.