A Cardiffian Christmas

Quick. What's a pantomime? Nope, I thought it was a play without dialogue too, but no. A "panto" is a raucous fairy tale - Cinderella and Snow White are favourites - in which men dress for some of the female roles and the audience is encouraged to heckle the actors. It's a Christmas tradition in the UK and they think it's common the world over. I haven't scene one yet (ar,ar) but they run til mid January so I'm going to try and make it to one when we get back from our Irish/Scottish tour.

Alcohol is a common feature at Christmas, conspicuous in its abundance, and Wales is no different. What's different is what's not different and that's the drinks themselves. In Canada I'll have a few egg nogs (from the few gallons I whip up) and maybe even some mulled wine. They do have mulled wine but I told it's available year round and not overly popular. They've never heard of egg nog and the common response when I ask and describe is, "you mean Advocaat?" I'm brewing a small batch of the real thing this afternoon just so's Deb 'n I can have a little Canuck warmth in our bellies before we get on the train.

But the pubs are jammin' and there's lots of them; some cozy, some cavernous and all packed. The younger people gravitate to the larger ones where there's a party atmosphere and they can roam about and try to get lucky; the older folks inhabit the smaller ones where they're well-known (a la 'Cheers') and sit quietly sipping their pints. The garlands and loosely strung lights remind the imbibers that 'tis the season to tipple, and they oblige.

In Vancouver you often here the complaint that Christmas is started too early and that as soon as the Halloween decorations come down the Christmas ones go up. Well they don't do Halloween here so can start even sooner. When I first saw them in late September I thought "oh look, there's a few they left up all year" but they were, in fact, the first signs of the changing of the seasons, as recurrent as the changing leaves. I've noticed that while people put a lot of effort into decorating their living rooms (the lounge) they rarely put lights on the exterior of their homes. Kinda miss that.

OK, time to brew the nog and get the bags packed. We'll be in Dublin tonight to start a five day tour that'll include Killarney (Christmas in Killarney with none of the folks from home...).

Merry Christmas!