Two Happy Pharaohs: 2011

I'll start by saying that I'm sorry all of these pictures are blurry. But I thought you could at least see a bit of what our little town looks like this week. On Thursday evening, Bookham had a "late night" (I'll qualify that phrase, because our town is mostly elderly folk or young couples with babies, so our "late night" started at 6ish and ended at about 9- which was perfect for us too) festival, which meant that the town, which has been decked in lights for the last few weeks, was packed with people from the surrounding villages, the shops were open late, there were free mulled wine and minced pies, burgers and yummies for sale, carolers, craft fairs, and happy people all around. It was so much fun for us to get to know our village better, and only the freezing cold rain kept us from staying until it closed. This first picture is of the little alley outside of our house leading to the main street- it was extra festive that night:

These next 2 are of our main street. The first is just outside of our house and the coffee shop downstairs, and the second is just in front of the big old church and graveyard a few paces down the street:

Saint Nic even arrived, and I really wanted to take a few pictures of the excited little birds talking to him, but there were policemen staring at me, and I didn't want to look creeps :), so here's St. Nic by himself on his sled pulled by a farm-truck loaded with firewood:

There was a 5-piece band doing impressive Christmas playing outside one of the local pubs, and later some carolers joined them. They even persevered through the rain, and we enjoyed them huddled in the door of a bank across the street.

Our friend Adam is the youth pastor of the Baptist Church in town (he's the one in the middle with the elf-hat)- they really cracked us up:

And we ended at St Nicholas, which is over 1,000 years old and absolutely beautiful. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take pictures inside, but groups in the community had decorated 12 Christmas Trees with the 12 days of Christmas theme using pictures and trinkets they had collected throughout the year. We also had a chance to hear the choir rehearsing their Christmas songs (Dad, they were your kind of music):

The whole evening made me love this season even more, and also made me think a lot about why and how we celebrate. I've just realized that I really love that we get to enjoy the secular celebrating AND have an extra reason to be joyful- the best of both worlds.

As a side, I plan on taking more pictures of our town this weekend so you can see what it looks like during the day.