New Year's Day Parade in London

London, like so many other large cities, has long held an annual New Year's Day parade which we attended this year. While the weather was crisp, it wasn't really cold -- at least for the first two hours. During the third hour the temperature dropped noticably and the wind increased quite a bit. We persevered into the third hour, but called it quits a bit before the finish.

While London is a very large city, the parade is not on nearly as impressive a scale as the Macy's parade in New York or the Rose Parade in Pasadena. In fact, if it weren't for American high school marching bands, who participated in unexpectedly large numbers, the parade would be a great deal shorter. Frankly, the American bands represented most of the best units; and, collectively, they provided almost all of the best music. However, don't get the idea that this more "intimate" parade isn't still a lot of fun. Many of the marching units are so typically British -- highy amateur and having a lot of fun. And, this being Britain, there were a lot of historical references, with marchers in medieval and other dress. This year's parade had a "London in World War II" theme and there were lots of American military vehicles, mostly owned by Brits who lovingly restore and operate them.

There were over 500 American cheerleaders and dancers in the parade -- part of an organization called Universal Cheerleading/Dance Association (UCA or UDA). In fact there were so many, that they appeared as about 4 different units at different parts of the parade. As already mentioned, the American high school bands make up a large part of the parade (by the way, our vote for the best one was the school from Grove City Ohio -- great marching and wonderful music). Another very large American contingent was a group of ladies called the Red Hat Society. We've looked them up on the internet and it's an organization of "over 50" ladies who get together to have fun with gusto -- and a large number of them were having fun in London. We couldn't help but reflect on the fact that the parade had to include at least 5 to 8 thousand Americans and we wondered if Londoners realize what an economic boost all those hotel rentals represented. To say nothing of the thousands of bake sales and raffles there must have been in the US to finance all these groups coming to London for the parade. There are some photos at: http://chuck.smugmug.com/Other.

Christmas in London

Our Christmas Day was a quiet one, with many of our colleagues and friends being out of the city; and, of course, with our family being far away. London took on a wholly different aspect from what we are used to -- it was very quiet for several days, with comparatively few people on the street and very little traffic. A great many of the residents had gone "home" to the country or other cities to be with family. Kathi prepared a wonderful traditional dinner with all the expected dishes including two of our family traditional favorites -- scalloped corn casserole and broccoli and cauliflower casserole.

Kathi played a role in the children's Christmas pageant at church (there were several adult roles) -- she was the "good inkeeper" who let the Holy Family use her stable. She looked fetching in Chuck's bathrobe! We also helped with the decorations of the church, which looked beautiful. (Unfortunately, we never remembered to take a camera to church and get some pictures.)

There were also several very nice social gatherings in the days before the Holiday itself. We attended a dinner at the vicar's house (he is single and did all the cooking) with about 12 other people from our church; and we co-hosted a "progressive" dinner party of couples from the Officers' Wives of London social group (which Kathi is a member of) about a week before Christmas. We hosted the appetizers and main course portion with another couple in our building (Chuck's commanding officer and his wife) hosting the dessert course. There was also a very nice "sherry and mince pies" gathering at the home of our church curate and his wife.

On Christmas Eve we took a LONG walk with another couple to view the various parts of London with Christmas lights and window displays; it turned out to be another of those 7 or 8 mile walks which seem to be something one automatically does in London. The most spectacular windows were in the famous and very expensive Harrod's Department store; the most enjoyable street lighting was in Regent Street and in Carnaby Street (remember Carnaby Street from the 70's?). There are some pictures at:
http://chuck.smugmug.com/Holidays. We're sorry that all the pictures seem to be of "secular" sites -- store windows and street lights. As we said earlier, this is largely because we never remembered to take the camera to church and because these just happened to be the places we got photos of.