Falalala lala lala…

Yup this is it… Every year at exactly this same time, passed the Halloween extravaganza, I find myself mopping around and wishing I was back in the UK.

I dream of biting into a mince pie, M&S or waitrose’s best. I imagine walking into shops listening to Wham and Slade on repeat, seeing bright, bold Christmas light and Carnaby street dressed up for the occasion.

I want to attend ALL the Christmas parties, where you drink and sing too much while wearing a stupid paper crown and study the silly little favour that came out of a cracker, not knowing what it is meant to be.

I want to go to a Pantomime and walk through Hyde Park Winter Wonderland…

Being so far away at this time of the year is an ache hard to describe and hard to understand for a lot of people.

England is not my birth country but it picked me up and made me grow at a very formative time of my life. So at a time where families gather, I feel this need to go back to the Motherland that adopted me one day.

There is a connection to London that I cannot put words onto. I feel at home there.

For very practical reasons we don’t go back at that time of the year and every single year it gets tougher.

So I hear you say “create new traditions woman!” I try! but the area I live in is not really playing ball.

So yes, we do have our ugly sweater party with friends without whom life would be really dull and the Pantomime is replaced by an annual trip to a Musical. We go see the local decorated houses and try to visit a Christmas market but still, there is something not quite there because this is well and truly the curse of the expat… wherever you are, there is a piece of somewhere else missing…