December 24-25

       If I can't be home for the holidays, I say that being in London is a pretty sweet alternative. How many times am I gonna get to do that? On Christmas Eve, my friends Sarah and Kim and I went to the city. We took the tube, of course, and missed our stop for the first time since we've been here because we were talking about food : ) Quick fix, and we landed right across the river from the London Eye, our number 1 destination that day. The sun was out, and the view from the ground and from up in the London Eye was incredible! (pics are already on facebook). I half expected Peter Pan to fly by Big Ben, but of course that didn't happen. After the Eye, we headed to St. Paul's Cathedral in hopes of catching their 4:00 Christmas Eve service. Woah. I laughed when I saw the line of people waiting to get in. We got there at about 3, and the line was already wrapped around the building! Seriously, it was way worse then Disneyland. Those people must have been waiting for hours! Needless to say, we gave up. We found a pub around the corner and had a snack. Like I said, I was out with Sarah and Kim. It was a very interesting experience to watch what happened when their blood sugars dropped from hunger. I was a little worried, I must say. Neither of them are diabetic (or else they would probably be dead after all the chocolate we've been eating lately), but they were totally spacing out on me! I gently sat them down in the pub, helped them decide on something for us all to share (their ludic decision-making ability was cloudy at this point), and went to order for us. They perked right up when they ate something, but I was starting to think I was the crazy one! I'm glad I had a big breakfast that morning or else we all might have been stranded on a street corner somewhere trying to remember our names. Just kidding, it wasn't that bad, but I'll just say I'm thankful for food and its rejuvenating qualities and move on from there. After we finished at the pub, we went to Asda for a few last-minute things for our Christmas dinner and then went back to campus.
       I had 2 mince pies for dinner (which are far from nutritious), and then promptly grabbed my guitar to go jam in the stairwell where I found some fantastic acoustics! I surfed the internet for chords to Christmas songs and had myself a "merry little Christmas" Eve, and my friends joined me a bit later for a Christmas carol session. It was super fun :) We had originally planned on going to Christ Church's Christmas Eve service, but we were all too tired. I'm glad we stayed in. Really, how many days out of the year can I jam to Christmas carols on my guitar without looking crazy? Just a few, so I took advantage of it. We ate tons of cookies and chilled in the stairwell for a couple hours. There was hardly anyone around, except one of the security guards and a few other people. It turns out that the guard on duty is a music fan also, so we talked shop a bit and he gave me a few tips on artists to listen to. Kim, Sarah, and I ended our fabulous Christmas Eve by watching a bit of White Christmas with our mugs of hot chocolate :) We were too tired to make it all the way through, but we stayed up until midnight, wished each other a "Happy Christmas!" and went to sleep.
       I woke up a couple times that night thinking I was at Grandma's house. How disorienting! I definately woke up in London, and got to work on some Christmas morning pancakes! Yum. We ate our fill and then walked to church. It hasn't snowed for a number of days now, but there is still a bunch of leftover snow on the ground. My first White Christmas!!! Honestly, I think the whole "White Christmas" ideal is overrated. Maybe that's the beach girl in me, but I'm not a big fan of slipping around on frozen snow while walking to church. Come to think of it, I'm not a fan of all the layers I have to wear to keep warm in this winter weather either. To be fair, snow actually has an insulating effect (except on my feet) so it's better than rain, but I prefer sunshine, sand, a tank top, shorts/jeans, and flip flops. Whatever. That's for another day, and I still had a lovely Christmas. At the church service, they played a legit ORGAN with real pipes and everything, and it rocked my world! Ah, it's sounded so beautiful. The lady who led a number of the carols had a really good voice too, so I just listened to her mainly, because they sang some carols I didn't know.
       After the service, we walked back to campus and got to work on our Christmas feast! We chilled in the kitchen all afternoon, took shifts for power naps, and whipped up a whopping good meal! Making Christmas dinner was a first for all 3 of us, so we kept Google close beside us for cooking tips. I would tell you more of the details, but you would probably laugh at our ignorance, so I will just tell you that it all turned out just fine. Our mothers would have been proud, even though they would have laughed at our methods. Between the 3 of us, we made a ham complete with cherries and pineapple, broccoli casserole, sweet potatoes, twice-baked potatoes, corn, dinner rolls, and applie pie (which we bought frozen, I'll admit). We enjoyed our meal in the stairwell, and Sarah brought in her mini Christmas tree to complete the festive scene. We took a couple plates of food down to the security guards, and we still have tons left over! I'm excited for dinner today. After we stuffed ourselves, I pulled out my guitar and we sang some more Christmas carols. In between times, we got to meet each other's families via Skype and hear about all the family celebrations back in the States. Technology is amazing. After that, all that delicious food that was stewing in our stomachs made us all tired, so we parted ways around 10 and wished each other a final "Happy Christmas."

Prayer Request of the Day: Still, that Ashley's flight over here won't be cancelled and that she will arrive safely and on time. We have so much to do!