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