Christmas Adventures Part 3

Day 3 – Christmas Day!

Christmas Day starts, of course, with breakfast in bed. Beth’s preferred eating location. Beth enjoyed eggs benedict with fruit salad while Brent had smoked salmon with scrambled eggs. Merry Christmas indeed. We then proceeded to open our stockings (very generously and thoughtfully provided by the Schmidt family of Fredericton, N.B.) With stocking opening finished, we headed out to St. James Park for a little Christmas morning walk. After heading by the palace and through the park, we saw the Old Admiralty Building (where Churchill worked as First Lord twice) and saw the Horses Guard change. We headed for Westminster Hall and No. 10 and just enjoyed a rather unseasonably warm Christmas morning. Just about this time, Brent decided that 10 to 12 hours of sleep in each of the last two days has cured his cold. Churchill would have been proud.

On the way back, we again went through St. James Park where we heard the bells of Westminster Abbey ring in Christmas Day. Beth was able to show Brent her favourite Palace in our neighbourhood – Buckingham Palace. The Queen’s Standard wasn’t flying as she was having Christmas day with the rest of fam across town.

We returned to the Dukes to prepare for Christmas lunch. What needs to be said about a 6 course Christmas lunch with all the fixings? It included canapés, soup, appetizer, fish course, turkey with the usual acoutrements, Christmas pudding and mince tarts. Beth even tried the fois gras pate. We were stuffed! It was tremendous but, to be honest, we both would have preferred our families’ turkeys to the Dukes. Yet, we made the best of it as did our fellow Christmas lunch guests. Our observation after 4 months in England is that the English are generally a reserved bunch. But fill them up with Champagne and get the food on the tables and they go wild! It was like eating in the middle of a rugby match played on Guy Fawkes Day.

After lunch we were suitably stuffed and had to return to our room to contemplate the meal and watch National Lampoon’s Family Christmas. Classic Christmas stuff. After resting for a good number of hours we retired to the sitting room for some light sandwiches and then the bar for the daily martinis (interestingly the hotel bar is apparently world renown for its martinis, and used to be a favourite spot of the Queen Mum’s for this very reason) We will miss the Dukes.

For some reason the pictures are not loading.....go to www.flickr.com/photos/bethandbrent/ to see all the London pics.