It's Coming on Christmas

"It's coming on Christmas. They're cutting down trees."

Do you know which movie that's a quote from?  

It's a quote from my favorite movie, "You've Got Mail."  Meg Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly, is reminiscing about her mother while she's decorating a Christmas tree in her book store window. 

" It's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees. Do you know that Joni Mitchell song? "I wish I had a river I could skate away on?" It's such a sad song, and not really about Christmas at all, but I was thinking about it tonight as I was decorating my Christmas tree and unwrapping funky ornaments made of Popsicle sticks, and missing my mother so much I almost couldn't breathe."

That is my all-time favorite movie. I have probably seen it a hundred times and even listened to the directors' comments through the whole thing. I can quote many parts of it, and often do, as it runs in the background while I sew. 

"It's coming on Christmas." 
These are the words that been running through my head this past week or so. In Meg Ryan's voice. They make me feel sentimental. And a little sad. 

In Thurso, they have put up the Christmas decorations that attach to the streetlights. And they light up. And because I can see them from my out our window, I get to enjoy them all the time.  It's the kind of thing that happens in small towns. That's one of the many things I like about small towns. 

They are especially wonderful early in the morning. 

Actually, it's not that early -it's like 7:30 or 8 am, but it feels early because it is still very dark out. But at this time the Dounreay traffic has gone and there is a lull on the street. I know this because this is the time of morning that I walk. And as I head across the bridge to meet the girls, I get to admire them in that quiet moment. 

Last weekend was a big deal in our little Thurso. It was like the official ushering in of Christmas. 

The shops on the high street were open and served biscuits (crisp cookies) and small candies and mulled wine. 
Yes, I said mulled wine. 
Do you think you would find stores serving mulled wine in the US?  I don't think so. 
And the shops offered 10% off purchases that day. 

The day was overcast and drizzly - just the kind of day that makes it feel like the Christmas season. 

There were a lot of people out on the high street. 

The high street is not the name of the street - it is where the shops are.  

And it's rather nice because there is only a walkway - no driving or parking. So, rather like an outdoor mall. 

And in the middle of the high street was a man with a taco truck-like truck that was playing music over a loudspeaker and blowing bubbles from the roof. The bubbles made it seem like it was snowing.  

It was all very festive and put us in the mood to go from shop to shop and drink mulled wine and buy things.  Actually, it turned out to be quite a productive afternoon.

On Sunday afternoon, there was a wee parade that started on the high street and ended at the town square (about a 5 minutes' walk  - LOL).  

It was pretty important to me that we see the parade. And the tree lighting.  
It's part of what this community does to start Christmas and I wanted to be a part of it.  

But I will confess to you that when I found out that the parade would start at 2:00 and the tree lighting was not going to happen until 4:30 - I had to wonder. 

Take note of the above description - that it is literally a 5 minute walk from the middle of high street to the town square, if one were to walk it in regular fashion. 

So, what did I do? I poo-pooed the time. I thought, "that is just the time the participants will gather.  Instead of standing out in the cold, we'll just show up a little later. And if I hear them going, we'll just run over." 

Big mistake. 

Apparently the parade DID start somewhere around 2 and when we finally popped over there, we were just in time to see Santa Clause go by.  
So much for being a part of the community event, huh? 

So, we hurried over to the other side of the square to try to see what we missed, because that's where people seemed to be gathered. 

There was a 'Big Band' playing music. There were groups of dancers who took their turns dancing in the middle of the street - from wee girls to teenagers. 

There were grown people walking around in costumes - in just the things you would expect to see at a Christmas parade - Minnie Mouse, a large pink pig, and a hairy coo wearing a tartan skirt. 

There were even 2 carnival rides. 

We watched the happenings and mingled with the people we knew, but after a while, we decided to get something to eat (we hadn't eaten any lunch for some reason). 

And that is when we noticed that there were no food vendors. 

If this had been the US, there definitely would have been food vendors. 



Ok.  We just walked over the Pentland Hotel on the corner, where we knew we could get a sandwich and a hot chocolate. 

But we struck out. They were getting ready for the evening buffet and apparently did not serve food in between the lunch buffet and the evening buffet. 
They had even cleared out the cake stand. 

 So we ordered hot chocolates, which came piled high with whipped cream. Very satisfying. 
And as we sat there, we suddenly heard over the loudspeaker, "Four. Three. Two. One." followed by a cheer. 
No way! We missed the tree lighting!

notice the on/off box with the giant switch 

How could that be? It was only 3:50!  The tree lighting was not supposed to happen until 4:30!

Oh well. When we finished our hot chocolate, we walked across the street to the square and looked at the lighted tree. And the lighted Santa. And since that had been the culmination of the afternoon, all the families had gone home to their suppers already. 

So, we missed the big event. Sort of. We did get to be a part of the community of people who gathered in the cold and drizzly rain to watch and listen and laugh and celebrate. 

I think that's really what I was looking for anyway.

The interesting thing about being here at this season is noting a big difference between Thurso and the Tri-Cities. 

Christmas is coming, yes. But it is not this big, blown out of proportion commercial thing here. It is, instead, quiet. And simple.  

Most of the shops decorate their windows in a festive way but we have not been accosted by Christmas music since October. There are no parking lots filled with live Christmas trees for sale. (In fact, I haven't seen any trees for sale...) 

There are a handful of houses that have some sort of lighted decoration on or in their house, but there have been no outside lights on the houses. None. 

Or candles in the windows, like I do at home and like they do in the northeast. 
Just here and there is a little outward sign of Christmas. Like this picture. This house is definitely the exception here. (Maybe they are Americans)

And I'm not sure how I feel about all that. 

On the one hand, I am glad it is not as commercialized and over-decorated like the US. 
There seems to be just the right amount done by the town to make it feel right. 
And the lack of brightly flashing lights on the outside of houses just reminds me that I am in a different culture. 
And I sort of like that. 

So, here is one little rant about Christmas and it has to do with the lights. 

I do like to put lights in the windows, and without my beloved electric candles to put up, I settled for Christmas tree lights. Or fairy lights, as they are called here. Now, I do have those in my house at home, too. I have a strand that goes across my fireplace mantle and they are lit up daily, year-round. And at Christmas, I get another strand and mix them with garland and wrap them around the banister going up the stairs. 

So, I thought since we would not have a tree here this year, and I did not bring any of my Christmas decorations with me, I would just make it festive by getting some fairy lights. 

Firstly, let me tell you that the fairy lights here are expensive!  What I would pay $2.50 for at home is 10 pounds here (which is about $13). When I finally found some that were less expensive, but still 3x the cost, I bought them and put them aside until it was time to put them up.

The  point is here - on this particular subject - is that after years of buying twinkle lights/fairy lights, one knows what to expect, right? 

Well, the thing is ..... I am starting to think that there is a little sibling rivalry thing going on between the US and the UK. Kind of like the brothers thing. They can't be exactly alike. One has to be a little different. 
That's what makes living here both amusing and frustrating, actually. Just enough to be a like, yet...different. 

I bought 2 boxes of 100 lights and 2 boxes of 50 lights - a couple to go around the large windows and a couple to lay on the window sills. 
Surprise! The string makes a loop!  A what, you say?  
A loop! I said. 









Instead of a nice, clean beginning and end, it makes a loop. 
The end joins back with the beginning. 

There is only an end that plugs into the wall.

Not a beginning that plugs into the wall and an end, I might add, that let's you plug in a second string of lights to the first string so that you have enough to go around the tree. 
Nope.

So, instead of having a string of 100 lights, you now have a string of double lights, but only 50 lights long. Or, you can stretch them out to make a single string of lights around the window, but to get the lights to be across the top of the window, you have to have the cord come together in the middle.  (see the picture window above)

And here's the rest of the rant - I think the UK really does not trust people with electricity. 

There are no outlets in bathrooms. Think about that. 

My hallway does not have an outlet. To vacuum my stairs, I have to plug in across the kitchen, extend to the hallway and do half the stairs.  Then unplug and plug in downstairs to finish the stairs. And when they do make them easy to find, they are halfway up the wall. Or high up on the wall, as we saw at our yoga class last night. Seriously - those outlets were about 6 feet up. 

Ok. I'm done ranting. It does make me wonder, though, how they put lights on their Christmas trees. 

But, it's coming on Christmas. 

Kathryn arrives here tomorrow and will get to be with us for 10 days. I am looking forward to taking her to see the local sights. 
Hopefully the weather will cooperate because most everything is outside.  
And then she will return home and we will fly to Brussels to meet Bryan, where we will spend Christmas together in an AirBnB apartment. 

It will definitely be a different Christmas this year.