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Christmas in England - the truth
Dec. 8th, 2009 06:52 pmSo, in a little over a week I fly to England for Christmas, weather permitting. (No storms between here, Boston, and England, please)
The funniest thing about this process is everyone's impression of Christmas in England. I'm quite happy to say that I lived in the south of England and things are different up north and in Scotland. Everyone that I talk to (even people who have visited the UK) have this strange impression that Christmas where I lived is cold and snowy and pretty, rather like one of the Victorian paintings.
Er.
A hundred years ago, probably even sixty years ago, this wasn't too far from the truth. Now?
Not so much.
Christmas in my little corner of England is usually warm (5C+ - sometimes low teens) and the precipitation we get is in the form of rain. Bright, sunny Christmases aren't something that I really remember, although I'm sure we've had them. They're usually damp or raining. There's a lot of mud. Winter in my corner of England might get snow for one day in February, but that's it. Last year's snow was such a big deal purely because we don't normally get weather like that and the country isn't prepared.
I blame Hollywood.
Seriously, when is the last time you saw a festive movie set in London (it's always London or the surrounds - never Bognor or Cardiff or York or some other non-South East location) that didn't have convenient snow on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? As much as I enjoyed watching the move Holiday at the weekend, I kept cringing from all the exceedingly unlikely snow in Sussex. If it's a location that people where people can commute to London for work, there is unlikely to be snow on the ground in December.
I am not saying that Christmas isn't lovely over there. A crisp, cold, bright winter's morning can't be beaten and there are a lot of absolutely beautiful places that I'll be visiting. That Victorian Christmas that everyone is imagining me having, though, is about as probable as a Labour win in the next general election.
I'm thinking that, to counter-act all this crazy talk about beautiful snowy London, I'm going to take a photo journal while I'm away and try to upload to Flickr each evening. Sound good?
I've just jinxed it to snow from the moment I land, haven't I?
The funniest thing about this process is everyone's impression of Christmas in England. I'm quite happy to say that I lived in the south of England and things are different up north and in Scotland. Everyone that I talk to (even people who have visited the UK) have this strange impression that Christmas where I lived is cold and snowy and pretty, rather like one of the Victorian paintings.
Er.
A hundred years ago, probably even sixty years ago, this wasn't too far from the truth. Now?
Not so much.
Christmas in my little corner of England is usually warm (5C+ - sometimes low teens) and the precipitation we get is in the form of rain. Bright, sunny Christmases aren't something that I really remember, although I'm sure we've had them. They're usually damp or raining. There's a lot of mud. Winter in my corner of England might get snow for one day in February, but that's it. Last year's snow was such a big deal purely because we don't normally get weather like that and the country isn't prepared.
I blame Hollywood.
Seriously, when is the last time you saw a festive movie set in London (it's always London or the surrounds - never Bognor or Cardiff or York or some other non-South East location) that didn't have convenient snow on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? As much as I enjoyed watching the move Holiday at the weekend, I kept cringing from all the exceedingly unlikely snow in Sussex. If it's a location that people where people can commute to London for work, there is unlikely to be snow on the ground in December.
I am not saying that Christmas isn't lovely over there. A crisp, cold, bright winter's morning can't be beaten and there are a lot of absolutely beautiful places that I'll be visiting. That Victorian Christmas that everyone is imagining me having, though, is about as probable as a Labour win in the next general election.
I'm thinking that, to counter-act all this crazy talk about beautiful snowy London, I'm going to take a photo journal while I'm away and try to upload to Flickr each evening. Sound good?
I've just jinxed it to snow from the moment I land, haven't I?
