A family Christmas US style
Still, at least we didn't have to worry about learning a new language, right? Well, not exactly. Zed or Zee?George Bernard Shaw once said "England and America are two countries separated by a common language" and within a week of being here I completely knew what he meant. Take for example, something as simple as the last letter of the alphabet. Now most Brits know that it's pronounced 'zee' in America. Unfortunately, nobody told the Americans that we pronounce it 'zed' so when my 5 year old spelt his name zed-a-c (Zac) his teacher at school mentioned he was having problems pronouncing his letters! And it didn't stop there. Apart from the American common mispronunciation of 'tomato' and their insistence on dropping the second 'o' from 'chocolate', a lift has become an elevator, a footpath is a sidewalk, chips are fries and crisps are chips and a lorry has never been heard of. Although it's not all bad - thanks to the fact that they write the date backwards I've managed to knock 7 months off my age! (my birthday changed from the third of October to the tenth of March.) Christmas? Not yetI'll admit that one of my biggest worries about emigrating was spending Christmas away from home for the first time in my thirty-something years of life. When we left England, the skies were grey, the days were getting shorter and the shops were already filled with Christmas decorations. In fact, one of our suitcases was filled with brightly wrapped Christmas presents from our family, and we had left behind a similarly large pile for them. When we landed in Los Angeles, the skies were blue, the sun was blazing and the shops were filled with a multitude of decorations in orange and black. With Halloween just around the corner, there wasn't even a hint of Christmas and as I began to unpack our suitcases in our new home in Santa Clarita, about 30 miles north of LA, our snowman and reindeer adorned parcels looked bizarrely out of place. I decided to leave them in their suitcase until Halloween was over. What did I know? Once October finished there was still no sign of Christmas because the next big - make that huge - event is Thanksgiving at the end of November. Down come the orange and black decorations and up go the autumnal coloured ones, complete with scarecrows and baskets of dried flowers and an abundance of turkeys. Yes, not content with overdoing the turkey at Christmas, here in America they give it a trial run in November! If Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday in the American year, then the day after is the biggest shopping day! Black Friday, as it's known, is the unofficial first day of the traditional Christmas shopping season when stores offer huge savings on practically everything. And almost overnight down come the Thanksgiving decorations and everywhere is alight with Christmas trees, tinsel, baubles and incredible outdoor displays as neighbours and stores alike compete to have the best Christmas lightshows. The beauty of all this is that Christmas in the US starts at the end of November, which means it's still fun and new when the big day comes around. Old traditions and newGrowing up in a large family of eight, Christmas was always the most magical, wonderful time of the year and like most mums (I don't care where I'm living, I will never be a Mom) I've carried on many family traditions with my own children. Sadly, some of those traditions are inherently British and just don't feature in the American way of life. Take, for example, the Advent calendar. Children all over Britain wake up each morning from the 1st of December and excitedly open a cardboard door cut out of a wintry decorated flat box to reveal a chocolate surprise. Over here most people haven't even heard of them and none of the stores stock them. Disaster! The week before Advent last year I was on a long-distance call to my mother asking her to rush a calendar over for my children! At about the same time I was ordering Christmas crackers from ebay having scoured the shops for them here and received puzzled looks from shop assistants who all pointed me in the direction of the biscuit aisle when I asked if they stocked them. It seems the Americans just aren't as enchanted as we are with gift-wrapped tubes filled with plastic toys, paper hats and terrible jokes. Typical British Christmas foods are also sadly missing here. Christmas cake, mince pies and Christmas pudding are replaced by chocolate gateau, cookies and garishly coloured sponge-like creations. Even finding the ingredients to make them myself proved an impossible task - no Atora here but I was offered some real beef suet as a substitute. I just couldn't bring myself to make my mince pies with beef, even if that was how they were originally made. But by far the one great British tradition I miss most is that of Boxing Day, which quite simply doesn't exist in America. In fact, December 26th is just a regular, back-to-work day in the USA calendar. Growing up, Christmas Day was spent with my siblings and parents who didn't think it was fair to pack us all up and leave our new gifts at home while we went visiting family. That was saved for Boxing Day morning and then in the afternoon we all sat down to a traditional dinner of cold turkey and ham, bubble and squeak made from Christmas Day leftovers, and homemade trifle. Since my first son was born I have followed the same tradition so when my husband made his way into work last Boxing Day, I felt completely homesick for the first time since we moved here. This year he's booked the day off! Still, the great Atlantic ocean didn't stop one very important tradition in our family. Throughout my childhood, every Christmas Eve at 6pm my father would light the Christmas candle and wish us a Happy Christmas. As each of my siblings and I left home, we would all phone home just before 6pm on Christmas Eve and we'd all light our candles as my father wished us Happy Christmas over the phone. Last year, we put the phone on speaker just before 10am US time - 6pm UK time - and continued this special family tradition. As well as old traditions, we were also introduced to some new ones. California has a high Latin population where traditionally family Christmas gifts are exchanged at midnight on Christmas Eve, followed by food and drink and a general party into the early hours. My husband is South American so last Christmas Eve we spent the evening with his family, exchanging presents and celebrating the start of Christmas. By the time we returned home the children were exhausted and for the first Christmas ever they fell asleep without excitement keeping them awake. Christmas on the beach?One of the things that completely surprised me about California was seeing thick woolly jumpers in the shops. Why, I wondered, would anyone need those in the Californian climate? I soon found out as the temperatures dropped through December. In fact, it was colder here than in the UK. So much so that it actually snowed in the days leading up to Christmas and on Christmas day itself. My children were quite bemused when classes were interrupted so everyone could go outside while it snowed. Most of their classmates had never even seen snow, even if it was only a few flurries. However, while snow is a very rare occurrence here, the cold weather over Christmas isn't and I'm really quite glad. Christmas on the beach just wouldn't be Christmas, would it? So… …this year I'm more prepared. I managed to find a beautiful wooden Advent calendar that I can fill myself and use every year. My brother is sending over some crackers, an online store is delivering my Christmas cake and mince pies, and my candle is all ready for Christmas Eve. But I haven't even started my Christmas shopping - I'll leave that for Black Friday because that's when Christmas really starts, and even Santa likes a good bargain. by Clodagh Foelster Where to next?
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Last
autumn - or should I say 'fall' my husband and I packed our lives into
a few suitcases and boarded a plane for our new home in the USA. A big
move at the best of times, this one was made all the more daunting by
the fact that we were uprooting our five children, aged between 11 years
old and just 9 months, and leaving behind the only home they had ever
known. 
