Christmas & Hogmanay

Photo courtesy of Jackie Kelly

Christmas in Edinburgh is a month long affair.  I missed the start of the Christmas season (Nov. 29th) because I was still in the US at the time, but Edinburgh sets up a Highland Festival with rides, shops and lots of food.  And simultaneously, there is a German Christmas Market that offers even more gifts and amazing food.  Everything is set up right in city centre - in the Princes Street Gardens.  When all the lights are on and the Ferris wheel is in motion, it really looks beautiful.  Unfortunately, the festival can get really busy - especially on the weekends - so we stayed away for the most part.  We did take one Tuesday afternoon to enjoy some poffertjes (mini buttered pancakes with powered sugar and chocolate sauce), hot chocolate, mulled wine and cider and of course - sausages.  Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what the festival looks like. 

Santa's mailbox

As for what we actually did for Christmas, we are so fortunate to have made some great friends here in Edinburgh already.  On Christmas Eve, we headed to our friends Will & Jackie's for dinner and a round of White Elephant.  Dinner was amazing and we came home with WD-40 and a numpty (http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/numpty) mug.  Overall - a successful game of White Elephant.  From there we walked (swiftly) to the 11:15pm Christmas Eve Communion service at our church - St. Paul's and St. George's.  It was a nice service and led right in to Christmas.   

The next day we woke up and went right back to Ps&Gs for the Christmas service.  Because there were quite a few students that were staying in Edinburgh for the holiday, Luke invited a few over for Christmas lunch and two German students took us up on the offer.  They are studying at New College on exchange from the University of Tubingen in Germany.  Both are studying to go into the ministry.  Unfortunately my kitchen here is 1) not as big as my kitchen in Raleigh and 2) not nearly as well stocked with supplies, so I opted to make a roast chicken instead of a turkey or ham.  And although it was on the simplistic side, dinner tasted great and the girls brought us German cookies for dessert.  Yum!  Nora and Carolin are super sweet and we had a great time visiting with them. 

In Britain, the day after Christmas is also a holiday - Boxing Day.  From what I've read, it is when servants used to receive gifts from their employers known as a 'Christmas Box'.  Today we just don't have to go to work.  And I'm okay with that.   

New Year's (known in Scotland as Hogmanay) is a three day affair with lots of celebration and fireworks.  They set up even more rides for the Hogmanay festival and close down most of the streets in city centre for the parties.  Everything kicks off on the night of the 30th with a torch light procession through town and up Calton Hill (the one right by our house that we take Luther up daily).  We opted to meet everyone on the top of the hill and that we did.  There were 40,000 people up there for it.  They ended up closing off the entrances to the hill and people had to watch everything on big screens at the bottom.  After the torch light procession was over, they lit a wire framed '2013' on fire and then lit a giant bonfire behind it.  As you know, Scotland is a very wet country and it rained most of Sunday - making it very difficult to get the bonfire going.  And after that, they shot off fireworks from two different locations on the hill.  We were in a great spot where we could see both without having to turn around a million times. 

For the 31st, we opted to skip paying £30 to join the parties and played Sequence with our friends Kurt and Erin until 11:30ish.  Poor Luther-man was one stressed puppy all night because they shot off fireworks hourly until midnight.  For the big countdown, we headed back up Calton Hill with a bottle of Prosecco where we could see the fireworks from the Castle and Calton Hill.  Everything was timed perfectly and they started and stopped all at the same time.   

Well, I think that about covers it.  We definitely missed being with our friends and family in the US during the holiday, but our experience here was really special. 

We love you & miss you, 

Aubs, Luke & Luther