Some stores are closing at 4 pm, such as B & Q, others at lunch time.
Waitrose in London. Photo by Trevor Sharot.
In London the roads were busy. Not clogged. But busy. At Waitrose in London the car parks were busy.
The store was crammed with people. The shelves were emptying fast. The Largest size of Christmas pudding had gone, leaving only the smaller ones. For a family of one or two, that was not much dearer and allowed for portion control and more little pots for storing other leftovers.
Midnight Mass
What do you do if you are alone? Or a couple of you are in a foreign city? I was with my husband in Prague one year. My husband's business associate had paid for us to go to Prague, for a business meeting just before, as well as after Christmas Our contacts were busy with families. I found two places for us to go.
The first was Midnight Mass. Tickets were free, but you had to book, so that they did not exceed the numbers of seats for the comfort of all, and because fire regulations limit the numbers in any building in many countries of the civilized world.
The songs were partly in Czeck, partly in Latin. I had difficulty working out which page we were on. Luckily, eventually, after I had asked the person sitting next to me who spoke no English, a couple of locals swapped seats so somebody who spoke half a dozen relevant words could show me which page was next. She pointed out that the hymn numbers were displayed on an overhead board, where the numbers were intermittently changing.
If I had realised that the event, advertised in the local free English speaking newspaper, and the newsletter at the hotel breakfast table.
The holiday is bookcased by New Year's Eve, and Midnight Mass, ending with New Year's Day. But the twelve days of Christmas end on January 6th.
New Year
What will be your New Year's Resolution? You have a few more days to plan.
Useful Websites
Waitrose
John Lewis
https://www.johnlewis.com/browse/special-offers/home-furniture-offers/christmas-offers/_/N-nt1x
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