Happy Christmas

Mrs. W and I are slow to arise this morning. Yesterday we made a turkey dinner. Thanks to two very expensive organic, free-range turkeys purchased from our butcher shop in the last month, along with a lot of homemade sausage in the 10 months we've lived in Highgate, I'm now on a first-name basis with the butcher. After dinner, we took a long nap, then went to midnight mass, meeting the folks from the Polish-language mass as they came out the door. I believe there were at least a half-dozen priests, many of whom I've never heard say mass, on the altar. The monastery attached to the church has a small community of Passionists living in it. Thus we were rather late to bed, especially since Mrs. W wanted to call her family while extended members were all gathered in one place for Christmas Eve. Today we'll live like ex-pats without family: Go on a Dickens walk with London Walks and have dinner at some place run by a non-Christian.

Now to an issue I've been wanting to bring up for some time: Is Christmas more commercial here? As Rev. Lovejoy might say, "Short answer yes with an if, long answer no with a but." The advertisements seemed to start later and sustained less intensity. The Guardian noted in an editorial "in praise of Thanksgiving," written by somebody who hadn't spent much time in America during November or December, that

Thanksgiving also fulfils an even more valuable function. It acts as a dam that keeps Christmas in its place.
British retail's compulsion to start Christmas in September barely exists in America - because the cultural importance of Thanksgiving confines Christmas mania to a single month.

Now, I will say to American readers, after you stop giggling, newspaper editorialists are allowed to be wrong. So are bloggers, I guess. It may be that since I don't spend any time in a central business district, unlike Mrs. Werbenmanjensen, I seldom set foot in major retailers and therefore was rather sheltered from the decorations and music that can tire the mind by the time Dec. 25 rolls around.

One thing we have noted, and it was Mrs. Werbenmanjensen who brought it up first, is a lot more advertisements urging people to get their hair/shoes/clothes/nails "just right" for their holiday parties. We were invited to only one. Mrs. W's firm is American, and therefore doesn't have a Christmas party (although it throws one hell of a summer party--pagans!), so our company Christmas party was last night's turkey. It looks this morning like nobody tried to photocopy any body parts, so I won't have to discipline any of the workers.