December is always a full, fun, busy month, so hold on to your hats, here we go!
We started off by opening our Advent calendars. (Yes church friends, I know Advent didn’t start until the 3rd this year, but every calendar starts on the first!) For the second year in a row I purchased the Advent Calendar box from my End of the World Reading Club. Throughout December we get chocolates, survival kit, and book-ish items, then on Christmas Day we get a new book to read.
What I was even more excited about this year was the Advent Calendar I found for Joel - one from the line of Exit games we have been playing. Every day you open a door and get a little puzzle to solve which leads you to the next door. We had so much fun doing this every single day and we already cannot wait to get one for next year. This will be a new tradition in our household.
Then we kicked off Joel’s birthday month with a trip to Bristol with Steve! But not just any old trip…I found a company that makes “Mystery Guides” for different UK cities. They advertise it as turning an entire city into an escape room…but having done one, I would argue it makes the entire city into a scavenger hunt. Regardless, it is fun! They tell a story and in order to find the next pieces of the story you have to solve a puzzle using landmarks and signs around you. We learned a lot about Bristol and explored areas we had never been to before.
I could (and probably should) do a whole post just about this adventure as I took a ton of pictures! We started off at the Corn Exchange and learned a fun fact about that clock on the wall - it has two minute hands! Before Greenwich Mean Time was established in 1880, every British city had their own timetable “reckoned by the sun and signed by church bells.” Bristol time was 11 minutes behind London time, and the train ran on London time, so if you wanted to catch the noon train to London, you had to remember that it left the station at 11:49 Bristol time!
We learned so many other fun facts (you used to have pay for fire insurance, and if your building didn’t display the plaque showing you had paid, the fire brigade would not put your fire out!), stopped at a bakery for cake, wandered through a graffiti alley, popped into a busy pub to find the answer to one riddle, and so much more. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to explore a UK city. Funnily enough, Amy and Ben gifted one to Joel for his birthday later in the month, not knowing we had already done one! Luckily they chose Cardiff. We have also since purchased one for Bath, Leeds, and Nottingham. We can’t wait to explore!
We ended the day by stumbling across a restaurant called “Sandwich Sandwich” which has gone somewhat social media viral for its insanely packed sandwiches. We were the last to get in line before they shut it down for the day and although they were out of the sandwiches I most wanted to try, the ones we got were incredible! Their cheesecake was also amazing, actually better than the sandwiches I think, and possibly the best cheesecake I have ever had!
Ok, so that just covers the first day of December! Phew! The next I went up to Monmouth to officiate a wedding at Monmouth Methodist Church. It was a beautiful frosty day, though I imagine the bride was freezing just a bit! I love doing weddings and don’t get to do many here, so this was a joy.
We bought a second Christmas tree (from a secondhand shop) this year, solely so I could put one in the bay window of our dining room. (Since we don’t actually spend much time in that room it couldn’t be my only tree!) I love how it looks from the front of the house!
Asda came out with a “Christmas Feast” pizza this year - topped with turkey, stuffing balls, pigs in a blanket, and served with a cranberry drizzling sauce. It was delicious and we ate it several times in December. At the start of the month, they even had some shaped like Christmas trees! Here it is uncooked as I had to cut it in half to fit in the air fryer I now use as my oven. The regular circle-shaped ones tasted just as good but weren’t nearly as fun.
On the 8th, I went to Trellech for their Trellech Teas, which I usually don’t attend as they are on Fridays (my day off.) I made an exception this time as the reception (kindergarten) kids were going to be singing some Christmas carols. It was so fun! I also went back towards the end of the month when the whole school came to the church to do their Christmas concert and that was fun as well.
I led my last service for the year at the hospital and I was pleasantly surprised when they gave me a Christmas present. It was topped with some origami which was especially lovely as I had done my paper cranes with them the month before. Inside was a box of dark chocolate which I love!
This time of year they deck out the castle and grounds with lights so you can still walk around at night. The string lights along the path are actually super bright.
They also have colored spotlights on the castle and they rotate through different colors. I waited to catch the red lighting up the Christmas tree as it felt the most festive!
The middle of the month passed rather uneventfully, then on the 21st I decided we should celebrate Joel’s birthday early again! So we spent a whole day where he got to decide what we would do. We started by going back into Bristol and to Sandwich Sandwich again, this time to get the ones we missed out on last time - the Christmas Sandwich and the BBQ Brisket and Mac and Cheese sandwich. I did not get the best angle photos of these, I was too hungry! But know that it was piled high with turkey, beef, stuffing, and so much more - with gravy to dip!
Unfortunately, Joel got a raging headache so we headed home before exploring more of Bristol. Which is too bad because we just missed a pop-up concert from Sam Ryder performing at the Christmas markets - we were right there! But also it turned out to be a good thing that we went home early because the old bridge was closed for high winds and the new bridge had an accident so a normally 25-minute drive took us almost 2 hours! We rested in the afternoon then in the evening decided to go out driving around and looking at Christmas lights. There were some very good displays but I think this one is my favourite!
On Joel’s actual birthday, the 23rd, we headed up to Amy and Ben’s to celebrate and play more of the Dominion tournament that Joel had created for my birthday. I made a lemon rhubarb cake that didn’t look like much but tasted delicious. Amy helped me decorate with some leftover party stuff she had, thus the unicorn horn and jumble of candles that kind of adds up to 48! I didn’t get any pictures of us playing as we were having too much fun!
On Christmas Eve I led four services - 10:30 at Rogiet, 4:00 at Penycaemawr, 6:00 at Trellech, and 11:15 at Caldicot. I think this will be my last year doing that as I ended up losing my voice for a few days. However, it was an amazing evening, especially at Penycaemawr - for a chapel that usually worships about 8 on a Sunday, we had almost 60 people show up for the candlelight and carols! I had more people at that service than my other three combined!
On Christmas Day we just chilled…I was even too exhausted to make it to church (thankfully Yvette was leading!) and just watched the service on Zoom. We ate a ton of cheese, watched our Christmas trilogy (Love Actually, Die Hard, Love Hard - in that order) and of course, watched the King’s Speech.
On the 27th I led a wedding blessing for a couple that got married in Greece over the summer and wanted to do something for family and friends here that didn’t make it to Greece. The bride’s cousin sang an original song she had written for their wedding which was incredible!
On the 28th we went back to Amy & Ben’s for more games - no pictures because too busy playing. On the 29th I was booked in for a much-needed massage and it was wonderful.
Then it was New Year’s Eve! I led worship at Trellech in the morning - a joint service with the Church in Wales. Then we celebrated in our traditional low-key way - Steve came over, we played a ton of Dominion, watched Community, and stayed up just late enough to watch the fireworks in London and have a glass of Prosecco (that I took one sip of and then gave the rest to Joel because I didn’t like it.)
It was a fabulous way to round out a pretty fabulous year - here’s to more fun, friends, and games in the year to come!
XOXO, Bethany