Our first dilemma was the tree. Where to buy one, especially when you don't have a car? I found a couple of places online that delivered but if felt sacrilege, especially given our yearly tradition in CA of scouring the tree farms in los gatos for hours until we (ok I) found the PERFECT one. In the end, J bought one from a local nursery that delivered. And it was huge!
We contemplated returning it for a smaller one, but in the end, we just cleared some boxes and moved it into the living room. The next dilemma was lights. We brought our strands from CA so J hooked up a transformer to make them work. They were definitely brighter than we remembered...and every one of them proceeded to burn out over the course of an afternoon. Our friends had given us a couple of UK strands but they were fluorescents, whose brightness just didn't have the right feel for us. So J added another errand to his list - buying lights for the tree. K is tall enough to reach at least halfway up the tree and still doesn't grasp the "look, don't touch" concept so we were only able to put up about half of our ornaments. Depending on how you look at it, our tree was either half empty or half full.
For Christmas Eve we planned an outing with our friends MM, KK and C. We all rode the tube to Southbank Centre to see a play called "White". Here are a few pics from our walk across the pedestrian bridge to the theater.
The show was designed for the 2 to 4 yr. old set (perfect for us) and absolutely darling. All the kids sat on the floor in the front, totally transfixed throughout the entire performance. The adults all enjoyed it too. Here is J & K chatting up one of the performers after the show.
After the play, we walked around outside where there was a Christmas Market, ate hamburger & sausages for lunch, and rode the carousel. 
Then we all came back to our house for some prosseco & mince pies. That night we skyped with family back east.Christmas morning C got up and thought Santa had passed us by since she didn't hear his reindeer on the roof. But to her surprise, he hadn't. Opening the little gifts in their stocking - complete with an orange - was a huge hit.
It was a perfectly lazy day and K and C spent most of it playing with their new train set and magnatiles.
And here is C singing a Christmas song she learned in school (how cute is the accent?!):J cooked a traditional british dinner and we all went to bed well-fed and happy. J's parents arrive in a couple of days and we're really looking forward to their visit.
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