Merry Christmas!

The Christmas season is officially upon us!

Last week we finished up school for the holidays and it was a very Christmas filled week! On Monday evening years 3-6 put on a Carol Service at the local church to which all the parents came. I got to sing with the year 6 students and it reminded me of singing at the Christmas concerts my Conservatory Choir used to do! It was really nice. On Tuesday the entire staff put on the most hilarious pantomime called "Cheryl Cole and the 7 Teachers". Written by a few of the teachers it was a spoof based on as many fairytales as we could manage and starring the pop star Cheryl Cole, played by a year 6 teacher. I was one of the dwarf teachers and spent two hours crawling around the stage on my knees with cardboard shoes attached to my knees... ugh! The kids loved it and we all saw more than one member of the male staff in drag, including the Fairy "Oddmother", one of the ugly stepsisters, and Queen "Justina Slot" (Mr. Justin Slot to the kids!) It was one of the funniest things I've ever been a part of!

Wednesday at 130pm was our staff party and we had an entire pub to ourselves. We had Christmas crackers, secret santa presents, free drinks for the majority of the evening, and the most delicious roast turkey dinner with pecan pie for dessert. It was such a good time! Barret came to carry me home around 10pm but some people stayed on well into the night! Barret's staff went out Friday night and I met up with them in the evening which was also a good time.

I'm sure you most of you know of the "adverse weather conditions" here in the UK. It has been pretty bad by their standards. Nothing to ours, but mind you we have the infrastructure in place to cope with it, whereas here, they don't. It's such a shame it's this time of year, as it was last year. People have been stuck at the airports and told they wont make it home for Christmas, maybe not even for the New Year. The headlines in the papers say things like "Heathrow Airport - A Third World Country". We are due to fly out to Dublin tomorrow morning from Gatwick Airport, it's snowing now and there is snow in the forecast tonight, but hopefully it will be fine. I hope so because that's where I want to be!!!! Please keep your fingers crossed for us!

Thank you to everyone who sent us Christmas cards! We really appreciate the thoughtfulness of your messages and even the thought to send us one. I do apologize as it would cost me a fortune to send everyone I want to cards, but just know our thoughts, prayers, and best wishes are with you all this holiday season.

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND BEST WISHES FOR 2011!

All my love

Amy xoxo

Christmas is coming!

The past week has been incredibly Christmas-y! There was "plenty" of snow (not very much by our Canadian standards...but you know how they get over here) In fact, between Blair and Barret they had 5 snow days! It was pathetic. Even more pathetic was the fact that I didn't get to enjoy any snow days with them! My school kept trudging on. Impressive I suppose, in comparison. The south of England got smashed with snow - 18 inches in places over night! Even at home that's quite a bit over one night. You can imagine how people were not coping. People sleeping in their cars on the highway, on commuter trains that were stuck in the middle of nowhere...the city was dead because no one could get in to work! Ahh...I do love it.

On top of the snow (which by now has melted...) we decided to get a Christmas tree! Back home we have big, beautiful, full trees. Well... here it's a bit different. It's not exactly a Charlie Brown tree, but it cannot be compared to any tree I've ever had. A lot of the decorations are homemade but there are some lights and a few Christmas balls which spruce it up a bit! It's very festive however and that's all that matters! We are really looking forward to our trip to Ireland so we wont be able to enjoy our tree on Christmas, but I'm okay with that!! For obvious reasons this year we are not doing Christmas presents, however... the boys decided to buy themselves an early Christmas present on one of their shared snow days. I was working away while the two of them decided that an XBOX was required in our living room. I lose many a battle and when I am not home to defend my opinions there is no hope for me :(

I cooked my very first whole chicken last week. And it was so good! It gives me the confidence that I might actually be able to cook a turkey! Barret's favourite meal is a turkey dinner and I think I might be able to finally win him over completely if I cook one! (Haha) I am also going to be doing some Christmas baking this week. I am the only one in the house who has a serious sweet tooth...so this plan of Christmas baking for the guys might backfire and I end up eating all the cookies. Wish I could invite you all over!

Only a week and a half left of teaching until we are dismissed for the holidays! I am so excited and cannot believe how quickly this term has flown by. As a staff we are doing a pantomime which I have a role in and should be quite funny. Next Monday is the Carol Service at a local church and I am singing with the year 6 students so that should feel quite like home! All of the projects my students have been working on are coming to an end so it's fantastic to see how they're turning out. My year 6's have been doing a comparison project looking at the Venetian painter Canaletto and the Canadian painter AJ Casson of the Group of Seven. It's been great to see their interpretations of the Canadian landscape, actually it makes me feel a bit homesick to see their paintings!

Nothing much else to report - just enjoying our time here! I have a feeling it's coming to an end this summer so trying our best to take it all in now.

All my love,

Amy