Gilberts' Fridge

Wow, I guess people really ARE reading my blog! I got a lot of e-mails over the last few days, so I guess it’s worth while to continue posting.
Not much new here, as usual. This weekend should be interesting though. Martin is working tomorrow morning, and I am going shopping with my lovely sister-in-law, Cathy. She always looks like a star, and I could use a little help. Tomorrow is the office Christmas party, and I want to look really good.
The holiday season in England is manic! There seems to be so much pressure to have the perfect Christmas, though maybe I just get that impression because of my mother-in-law. So much time and money is spent on decorations and presents and Christmas dinner. People usually gasp in amazement when I tell them that we used to have hamburgers or soup on Christmas day. They always forget that we have our huge family meal in November for Thanksgiving. Nobody wants to cook an elaborate feast on Christmas day!
The weeks leading up to Christmas at work are a little different, too. All of our suppliers have been coming in with gifts on their sales calls, and it’s usually a bottle or two of wine. I have two sitting on my desk right now. Everyone’s being taken out to lunch, which usually includes a lot of drinks. There are street vendors everywhere selling hot, mulled wine. It’s like the whole nation turns into a giant pub crawl. They estimate that one in three adults in England will drink and drive over the holiday period.
I am still not used to how heavily drinking is involved in the culture here. Being Mormon in this country is weird, because social occasions almost always call for a cup of tea or a pint. It really is difficult to be friendly without one or the other in your hand.
When you grow up as a Utah Mormon, it’s so easy to believe that the whole world lives basically like you do. For all practical intents and purposes, they do. If you don’t often leave, you never experience life in any other way. You get used to hardly anybody smoking, almost never seeing alcohol except next to the Coke in the gas station. People talk about Enrichment Night at work, and read the Ensign or the Book of Mormon on their lunch breaks. That’s what is normal.
Hearing our friends at church here talk about a visit to Utah is so funny. It’s completely bizarre for them to run in to the church outside of church. A trip to Provo is sort of surreal. They talk about their experiences like the strangest things just happened, and Martin and I nod our heads and say, “yeah, so?”