possibility. We now know that it is somewhat of a tradition to go out on
Christmas day in America, even eating out - not very common in the UK at all.
For Americans, the Thanksgiving holiday appears to be more like a UK
Christmas, at least in terms of staying in and cooking a huge feast. Whereas
Christmas Day is for going out.
Christmas Eve was our first full day in LA and we spent the morning getting
very stressed as we looked for somewhere to send an email and some
photographs of our adventures so far. We were feeling the distance from
home a lot, especially Emma who was spending her first Christmas away from
her parents. Touching base, at least electronically, seemed the easiest way to
bridge this distance, particularly because her parents were away from home
as well, spending the holidays with relatives abroad. We were able to email in
our hotel, but not send photographs, so we trekked for an hour to a 'nearby'
Kinko's (a store where you can go and use computers and have work printed,
photocopied, etc.) that had this facility. We then spent the next hour battling
with technology until we were able to make the pictures small enough to send
- oh, the joys of digital cameras - and paying through the nose to do so.
The important thing was that we succeeded and we were in the holiday
mood once we went into Disneyland. We spent our first day in the California
Adventures side of the park, deciding that for Christmas day itself we would
like to be in the Magic Kingdom. As we entered the sky was blue and it was
actually quite warm, classic Californian weather, and there was Santa Claus -
complete with Hawaiian shirt and shades.
Emma ran over to have her picture taken with him, shouldering small