Hello everyone! Merry Christmas! 🙂 Well, it should be Boxing Day today and I’m all ready to go off to experience Boxing Day here in the UK where shops will be having massive discounts and of course loads of people squeezing in the shops grabbing items that they want! I’m already imagining the crowd and long queues in the shops, but well if I can save a lot of money and get a few more pieces of nice clothes, why not? 😛

Okay back to the topic for today. I want to share my experience of celebrating Christmas here in the UK! Christmas is one of the major festivals in the UK. Like how Chinese New Year is important for the Chinese or Hari Raya for the Malays, Christmas holds a significant meaning for families here in UK whereby every family will gather together for Christmas dinner and gifts exchange on Christmas day. Most families here also adapted the German way of celebrating Christmas by setting up and decorating Christmas trees together thanks to Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria which was a German and thought it was a good way to celebrate Christmas here in the UK using one of their German traditions. Next, carolling or carol service is also very popular here during the Christmas season. People will gather together and sing carols or Christmas songs, which are usually related to Jesus’ birth as Christmas is meant to be celebrate Christ’s birth on earth 2000 years ago. The University also holds an annual Christmas Carol Service in the Guildford Cathedral. I did attended the service and enjoyed the readings of Bible scriptures and traditional carols in the beautiful cathedral. 🙂

Besides the University’s Christmas Carol Service, I also celebrated Christmas in a few more ways. I was invited to attend a Christmas party hosted by the Friends International (a Christian non for profit organisation that reaches out to International students) in a traditional farmhouse at a nearby town. The Christmas party was amazing. We get the chance to make our own Christmas decorations and Christmas cards, listening to poem readings and watching a short sketch performance and of course enjoying food such as the traditional mince pies all prepared by the local families. How kind of them! As international students staying here alone, the love and care offered by the local families really melted our heart. 🙂 The house was also beautifully decorated with Christmas decorations and there was even fireplaces with open log fires! This is the first time I’m actually seeing one and I was so excited! 🙂

                                

Making Christmas decos with a friend!                               Fire place with open log fires!

Next, I also celebrated Christmas with my flatmates by having a Christmas flat dinner! As our kitchen is abit tiny (Cathedral Court apparently has the tiniest kitchen among all flats :(, but our room is more spacious compared to other Band Cs :P), we haven’t had the chance to gather for flat dinner since we moved in. At last, we actually managed to squeeze everyone in the small kitchen and we did enjoyed ourselves for the night with good food and great companies!

        

Having a feast! (Roast chicken, ribs, bacons & sausage…..) and our version of Christmas tree made of broccoli 😛    

 

     my lovely flatmates! 🙂

Last sun, I went to the SSE Arena in Wembley, London to attend Hillsong Church London’s Christmas Carols! The carols was simply incredible! There were singing, dancing, videos, drama, string orchestra, choir and alot more! The performance and carols were really good and I really recommend everyone who will be here next year to join in the celebration! Let the pics speaks for itself! (Pic credits: Hillsong London FB page)

        

 

After the carols, I went to the Hyde Park for Winter Wonderland! It was really good too with loads of theme park rides, Christmas market and food! There was even an ice rink, circus shows and a bar made of ice! There were lots of people and I believe everyone enjoyed it a lot. Before heading home, I also went to the famous Oxford street to checkout the Christmas lights decos. It was really beautiful! Everywhere just feels so Christmas and full of joy!

             

At the Winter Wonderland!                          Christmas lights at the Oxford Street!

Other than that, I also went up to Birmingham to visit Birmingham’s Frankfurt Christmas Market and Craft Market! It was apparently the largest Christmas German market in Europe outside of German itself! The market was really huge and filled with many different kinds of food, german beers, art and crafts! I tried many kind of foods offered such as marshmellow coated with Irish Cream and honey almond, German burger with mushroom and fries, fried cheese doughnuts and many more but my favourite is definitely the half meter sausage!

So many stalls!                                                  This is a bar, not a merry-go-round!

   Posing with my half meter sausage!

And lastly, I spent my Christmas eve and Christmas day with my younger brother who is currently now in UK for studies too. We spent Christmas eve just chilling at home and having a home cook dinner as Christmas is all about spending time with your family after all. On Christmas day, we attended a Christmas service in the afternoon and then prepared a feast of Christmas dinner together with his housemates!

So basically this is how I spent my first Christmas celebrating away from home. Sometimes we do feel lonely being separated so far away from our friends and family back home, but Christmas is just the perfect season to feel being loved again where everywhere and everything is filled with love and joy. 🙂

Guess this will be the last post from me for this year. So once again, Merry Christmas and Happy New year! See you guys again next year! 😛

Cheers,

Adeline