Max Ehrmann's Desiderata is one of those pieces of writing I often return to for a moment's meditation. And the holiday season (especially the week between Christmas and New Year) is a perfect time to collect and recollect, and plan for the year ahead.

Last year I did a series of photographs named 12 Days of Gladness, reflecting on the year when I up and left my job to move to be in the US with my husband.

I thought Desiderata would be the ideal way to reintroduce myself to blogging in 2014. All these photos are mine from the past year or so (except the first one which my husband took!)

I didn't learn much more in the way of photographic skills last year, but I did learn a lot about myself, the world I live in, and what I want to achieve for 2014. So I've spent most of January making considered and decided plans and goals for this year, and I'll share these ideas with you over the next few weeks.

I've also made some decisions about the kind of blog I want. I've always felt a little stuck between expat blogging, 'lifestyle' blogging, and blogging about more solid things relating to my career aspirations. I've decided that it's okay to mix all three!

I threw these photos together last night, and my husband found me at my desk as I was working on the last one. It's a photo from Camden in London, taken a few weeks ago. He'd never heard of Desiderata before, and he also didn't know that I'd taken that picture. The whole thing struck him much more profoundly than I expected - so I hope you enjoy it too!

Which poem or piece of writing inspires you? Or where do you take inspiration from? I'd love to hear. For now, I'm going to get back to reading my Bloglovin backlog…

Queen Speech Bingo 2013

Download and Print your Bingo Cards here!

Hey guys!

I know it's been a very long time since I made an appearance in the blogging world. The last few months have been busy (in a good way) and I have a lot of wonderful posts and photos to share with you. I just need to make time to do it. I'm currently in the UK having a very British Christmas (yay!) and it's a bit of a whirlwind tour visiting loved ones.

Anyway - this was one of my most popular blog posts of the past year so of course I had to do it again for 2013. I'm sneaking it in late this year, but here goes: Queen Speech Bingo 2013!

How to Play Queen Speech Bingo

The full rules are available here but really it's very simple:

• Print off a few bingo cards
• Watch the Queen's Christmas message
• Argue with your family
• Have fun!

How it Works

I use a list of the most common words from previous Queen Christmas speeches, and throw in a few extras (wildcards) to reflect recent events. Extra words for 2013 include George, information, internet, and independence.

Let me know if you decide to play, and of course, who wins!

Labor Day, Philadelphia, 2013

Last year for Labor Day, we stayed at home, baked cookies and watched Newsies. This year I had the honor of witnessing Philadelphia's Labor Day parade. Just like July 4th, I thought I'd share some of my photos from the beginning of the parade.

Now the tricky part about this was the rain that hit just as the event got going. It was torrential, but it didn't deter those who marched - which was truly awe-inspiring. People grabbed plastic ponchos and kept on walking. I grabbed one myself, although I used it to cover and protect my camera, while I got drenched from head to toe. My shoes took days to dry. I didn't mind though - it was much warmer than the same kind of rain in Glasgow!

So that's why these photos aren't the best, as most were taken through the armhole of a free plastic poncho.

What did you get up to for the holiday weekend? And what are you looking forward to this fall?

Happy July 4th, er July 2nd, wait… August 2nd, or 30th?

 John Adams wrote, and I quote:

 “the Second of July, 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.”

Okay America, what's going on here? This time last year it was 90F and sunny. Last year I sat in the sun and watched the local July 4th parade go by, and  cultivated a nice tan in my first few weeks adjusting to my new home country.

Today it's almost 90F, cloudy and muggy as hell (is hell muggy? I'd guess so).

But wait a minute, now you're telling me that July 4th isn't actually Independence Day? What mockery is this? John Adams reckons it should be celebrated on the 2nd (actual vote of independence) but those pesky Brits didn't even know about US independence for another six weeks!

Philadelphia, where it all happened, didn't celebrate until July 8th, and that was just with a parade and some gun fire, not a whole boat load of fireworks.

Incidentally, I also found out from Emma at Philly Love Notes that every July 4th in Philadelphia thousands of people head down to the waterfront at Penn's Landing and wait for fireworks. And wait. And wait some more. Because there are none. They're on the other side of the city.

The mental image of hoards of people bemoaning a lack of firecrackers cracks me up almost as much as when fireworks prematurely explode.

I tested this out on my US family and asked when the last time they saw July 4th fireworks on the waterfront.

Them: Hmm, several years ago at least.
Me: At least thirteen.
Them: No, not that long.
Me: No, I'm telling you, they haven't had fireworks there for at least thirteen years.
Them: Really? No. They happen there every year. Do you want to go this year?
Me: Uuuhh…

Philadelphia seems to have this collective false memory about the location of their fireworks. Is this the plot of M Night Shyamalan's next movie? As Emma later tweeted:  How do you convince 1000s of people not to show up to a fireworks show that doesn't exist?

If you're planning to head down to Penn's Landing tomorrow and take photos/video of disappointed patriots, please share the photos with me. I'd love to see them. As for me? I'll be at another parade this year. I promise to share some photos with you.

What are you doing for this most red, white and blue of holidays? 

What to get for an expat's birthday

The past month or so was action-packed. 

I was in a car crash, the company I worked for went bankrupt, I got a (very exciting) new job, and I got older. 

I was also originally going to go back to the motherland this month, but decided a short while ago it wouldn't be feasible with everything else going on. 

But even if I can't go back to the UK, I can have the UK sent to me! That's what friends and family will do for an expat's birthday. Here are some goodies that were sent to me by my loved ones…

Remember how I said I wished that The Great British Bake Off would be shown on US television? Well, this book will hopefully improve my terrible baking, plus it's got some of that cheeky innuendo found in the show. I'm still waiting anxiously for the US version, just to see how it'll compare.

And talking of baking: This cute bracelet is a real charm. Not only does the tartan remind me of home, it's made of BISCUIT TINS! It is, in a word, sweet. 

I also promise there will be more biscuits involved in future FOOD FIGHT posts.

This is a paper sheep.

I don't see too many of those any more, which is a shame, because naughty spring lambs springing through fields is a jaunty sight. 

And yes, that's a Marks and Spencer bag at the bottom. What would an expat do without her regular Marks and Sparks care packages? 

And the final thing is a gift from one of my girls, this fabulous Marmite t-shirt. You'll either love it or you'll hate it, and you can't get much more patriotic than a British condiment that makes Americans physically recoil.

All in all, I'm very grateful for my UK themed birthday pieces!

Note: I don't do affiliate advertising, so all of this stuff was really sent to me by friends and family, and I'm just showing it off because it's oh-so-British and I love it.

If you have popped over from Betsy's blog: Hello! I hope you stick around. Sit down, I'll make you a cup of tea. Tell me all about yourself. Do you like Marmite, or do you prefer PBJ?

If you haven't popped over from Betsy's blog, then I have a guest post over there all about emigrating from the land of Marmite to the land of PBJ. You should pop over and have a looksie.

Sunday Supplements (and Sunday Puppy Too)

None of my links today are particularly Easter themed, except for these terrifying pictures. Expat Edna sent them my way after I asked the Tweet machine if the Easter Bunny is trying to elbow Santa Claus out of the gift-giving scene. The past week I've been meeting all these American parents who take their kids to "see" the Easter Bunny, who then "gives" the kids toys, DVDs and video games for Easter. Is this really a thing? I guess rolling eggs just isn't cool anymore.

EATING/DRINKING

 

Not Peeps - here in the USA peeps are an Easter themed marshmallow treat. They have zero flavor, and the fact that they triple their size in the microwave is still no reason to buy them.

Not Kinder Eggs - here in the USA I could take my underage brothers to a rifle range, but wouldn't be able to buy a Kinder Egg. If I even tried to smuggle them in to the USA I could face a $2,500 fine, and frankly with that money I'd prefer something a little fancier, say Faberge.

Not Choco Treasure - The problem with Kinder Eggs in the USA is the "non-nutritive embedded objective" inside (the toy! The best bit!). Some enterprising Americans have invented packaging that gets around the US legislation. But I haven't seen any of these for sale, plus we know that Americans suck at making chocolate anyway.

WATCHING

 

Wreck-it-Ralph - Let's just all admit this movie is not for kids, but for the older millennials who grew up with 8-bit video games. Some of whom now make animation, and some of whom now take their own young kids to see movies. I am in neither camp, but there you go.

ADMIRING

 

Abandoned TastyKake Factory - TastyKake is Philly's preferred brand of commercialized cake. They were the local rival to Twinkies (when they existed).  You know how I love Urb-Ex photos, and Philly ones that at. Brilliant and eerie.

Fuck Yeah Brutalism - All the 1960s breeze block architecture you'd ever want to see.

Postcards from Google Earth - It's like those nightmares you have about being stuck in Sim City. Oh, you don't have those? Just me then?

READING

 

How the Philly accent is changing - The Philadelphia accent is really weird. It makes sense when you think about Pennsylvania's place in the USA geographically and historically. It's the keystone state, the anchor between the North East and the South, and the accent has influences from both regions.

The Skimm - If you don't read this every morning then you should, unless I know you, because then we won't have anything new to talk about with each other.

12 Days of Gladness: December

December 2012: This is a local tree farm. I thought this was a fitting picture - naked and de-robed Christmas trees come down on 6th January.

Also, I thought I'd show you the fun I had with our tree and my new lens! I got a nifty fifty, which I'm having fun with, using the wide apertures I can't get with my Sigma.

photo geekery: Christmas day heart bokeh, but of course. I first saw it on Pinterest, and had to try it (even before I saw Erin from Predictions for the Past had done the same thing). Just make sure your template is small enough, and pull your camera out of focus. It does work, honestly.

Queen's Speech Bingo 2012

It's that time of year again…

Download and print your bingo cards here!

Every year of her reign Queen Elizabeth has delivered her Christmas Message, broadcast to Brits in silly paper crowns on Christmas day.  It's our family tradition to watch the speech far more intently than most viewers, in order to clock up points for Queen's Speech Bingo.

We've been doing this for years, and a couple of years ago we started to share this tradition. We hope you'll join in the fun…

How to play

Give at least one bingo card to each player. Ensure all players are topped up with gin and dubonnet (the Queen's favorite tipple), well-stocked with chocolates, and overstuffed with a good turkey dinner. Position all players on the sofa, tune into the Queen’s speech at 3pm GMT and let the sarcasm, fun and arguments commence.

You may play however you like, but here are some tips:
- decide whether you will include words not spoken by the Queen herself.
- decide whether you will add your own wildcards (you must share these with your group before the speech).
- no spurious attempts to find out the speech beforehand (especially to those who work at/have contacts at the BBC).
- any disputes must be settled unanimously (family arguments are another Christmas tradition of course).
- choose your own prize. Our winners get nothing, but your winner could be treated like Royalty for the duration of Boxing Day, or the loser could perform a forfeit.

If you're not in the UK…

BBC World News America should be broadcasting the Queen's speech at 12.20pm EST (17.20 GMT)

Unfortunately, while the UK will get to enjoy Queenie in 3D for the first time ever, those of use over the pond will only get it in old-fashioned style telly. What a shame.

How it's done

We took the Queen's Speeches from 1982-2011, extracted 90 of her most commonly used words, and added in a few wildcards based on events from 2012 and suggestions from friends.
We then plugged these words into a simple bingo card maker.

If you like, you can also see 2011's Queen Speech Bingo page and cards here.

Feel free to share amongst all your friends, or at least to any quirky Angophiles you might know. Please let me know if you decide to play along, and how well you do!

Does your Granny always tell you that the old songs are the best?

Fellow transatlantic expat blogger Betsy Transatlantically recently posted a run down of the worst Christmas songs ever. Reading it set off a little (sleigh) bell in my mind. Remember this chart from XKCD?

Randall Munroe of XKCD's analysis of the USA's favorite Christmas tunes

This is totally alien to me. Or it was until I spent my first Christmas in the USA, and it struck me how old-timey American Christmases are. As a Brit I know all of these songs, but it's not what I grew up listening to on the radio during the festive season.

So I had to do a little experiment. I've recreated Randall's graph with recent data for both the UK and the USA:

My own analysis of the UK and USA's favorite Christmas music 2010-2012

A little word about the data: I used ASCAP's data for 2012, and PRS for Music's data for 2010 - 2012. I know this doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny, but I swear this will probably be the only time I'm recreating a graph based on work by Randall Munroe.

The point is that I was right: Christmas in the USA is very old-timey. The UK isn't all that modern either, but I find this utterly fascinating.  It says a lot to me about American and British culture.

I do think I'm reading too much into this, but at the same time I have a hunch about these countries' respective cultures. Much of modern US culture leaped into being during the 1950s, and many of the things we associate as 'American' can be attributed to this time - the food, media, habits and lifestyle.

The UK is slightly different. My husband suggested that the USA clings more to heritage because it has less history to draw from, whereas the UK is a much older country with a huge historical repertoire to cite when it comes to tradition, so perhaps it's a little more confident to go with the flow.

But that, to me, doesn't explain why the UK is stuck in the 1970s and 80s with regards to Christmas tunes. I'd love to postulate that it could be related to the way the UK responded to the economic crises of the 1970s and 80s. I'm a big fan of the art and culture (especially movies) that resulted from this period in the UK.

But to come to that conclusion I'd have to look at the popular Christmas radio songs in the UK before the 1980s, and find the tipping point for when British Christmas musical tastes really changed. And I'm not going to do that right now.

Instead I'm going to watch old Top of the Pops Christmas re-runs and dance like Shakin' Stevens for a bit while my husband looks on without comprehension.

The questions now are: What's your favorite Christmas song and when was it released? What will our kids listen to? And if I raised my kids on 1980s Christmas tunes would they turn out to be cultural misfits?

Title of this blog post is a lyric from the greatest Christmas song ever, Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody.

PS - I have a guest post over at the wonderful Grits and Moxie today, where I talk about another cute UK Christmas tradition!

Holidays are coming…

English Bulldog Christmas cards, available here

It was only a week ago that I bemoaned that lack of a holiday limbo between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And now our house is almost fully lit and decorated.

So I guess it's okay to show you these cards! I made them myself, and if you like them you can buy them here. And yes, the Cookie and Buster glad blog discount code is valid!

Also, just in case you ever wanted to know: It's actually not easy to pose a bulldog for a photo shoot. Ours has the attention span of a sleepy goldfish.

I'll be back in the glad swing ASAP.

Meanwhile… Follow my blog with Bloglovin

The Thanksgiving/Christmas limbo

Dear Americans,

It's too soon.

I don't care that Thanksgiving is over. 

I don't care that the nights are long and the lawn is frozen come morning.

I don't care if your houses are bare of decor. I don't care if they feel dark and sullen after the autumnal glow and ombre harvest shades.

I don't care if Santa Claus arrived at the end of the parade. 

It is still November. You still have turkey remnants lingering in your fridge. You have an extra week before Advent. You do not need to decorate for Chri-

Oh, who am I kidding? Never mind.  As you were.

There is no Thanksgiving/Christmas limbo. 

America's answer to Boxing Day is to make it bigger, brasher, and more menacing. But by the end of Black Friday the pumpkins, leaves, and corn were gone from every house.

Wreathes appeared on doors, making houses look like perfect little lilliput models. Strung up lights came on as if from nowhere. Reindeers, santas and nativity scenes popped up in front yards.

And they are multiplying.

One guy in the neighborhood has multiple sheds full of giant Christmas lights and lawn decorations. Over the past week more and more has appeared in his garden display.

But it as yet unlit, unlike the rest of the locale. When this boondock display lights up it'll feel like we have our own hyperlocal Blackpool Illuminations, to use a quirky British reference.

The 24 hour Walmart is playing Christmas songs (presumably 24 hours a day?).

Finding strings of white lights in store is getting harder and harder by the day.

Pumpkin shaped candy is out and bags of confectionery adorned with trees and Santas are in.

America, I am swimming here in festivity.

Christmas in Love Park, Philadelphia, and the Comcast building

Incidentally, today was also the start of the PA deer hunting season. This morning I saw a guy walking on his property wielding a gun … pointed up and towards his own house. Hunters, please stay safe and walk with your guns aimed at the ground.

Cookie and Buster are offering 10% off for Glad Blog readers - just enter code GLADBUSTER when you go to pay!

A British Girl's Guide to Thanksgiving

For my first ever thanksgiving, I was told to just sit down and enjoy myself. Soak in the experience.

This was not hard. Not at all.

The house decor had already transitioned from Halloween pumpkins to Harvest pumpkins…

The morning started with Mimosas, Monkey Bread and the Macy's parade.

To a Brit like me, a Mimosa sounds suspiciously like a Bucks Fizz: Sparkling wine and orange juice.

Show-off fact: A Mimosa is one part wine and one part orange juice. Bucks Fizz is one part wine and two parts orange juice.

Monkey Bread is a delicious cake of sugar and cinnamon dough balls to pick at.

The Macy's parade is another sparkling display of US bravado that feels just a little cheesy to British eyes, especially compared to the pomp and ceremony of our parades!

It's also a great opportunity for companies to secure good advertising. After each relevant float, the ad break contained corresponding commercials. Smart move.

The day has the usual holiday family frenetics full with amusing one-liners, especially when heard out of context:

I thought you would stuff the breasts.

I'm going to need a probe.

Apologize to her later when you're not naked.

And then the bird comes out.

festive turkey baster

 Show-off Fact: In the 1800s a turkey would have cost about $600 in real terms. Wild turkeys had been over-hunted and became quite rare during this time, so serving it was a real show-off.

As most British folks usually have turkey for Christmas, and I always certainly did, I wondered if it would be strange to have a huge turkey meal in a different kind of festivity.

Not at all. It's an entirely different kind of meal, preceded by grace and thanks. Thanks for long and prosperous marriages, for good grades, for health, and good food.

My husband gave thanks that we were finally able to enjoy our marriage together.

My mum, who flew over earlier this week, gave thanks for Thanksgiving as a good reason to come and visit.

I gave thanks that I've always had solid ground under my feet, and a stable roof over my head.

And then we tucked in.

Show-off Fact: Thanksgiving dinners were quite common in England during the Protestant Reformation. They were partly a protest against the showy festivals of the Catholic calendar - I wonder if the irony of this was lost on those who celebrated such a thanksgiving. They became a regular affair during November harvest festivals, and also surprisingly to celebrate Guy Fawke's night.

I wonder why, then, that Thanksgiving really hit it off after the settlers arrived in the New World, but lost prominence in the UK. In the USA it gained a new significance when Natives saved the settlers from the harsh American winters (and scurvy of course, by way of pumpkin pie). But what happened in the UK?

However, if you tell Americans that Thanksgiving was an English invention, they may not take too kindly to being informed their favorite holiday comes from those quirky Europeans with stiff upper lips and bad teeth ;)