Dec 22, 2013 By Eric Schulze 5 min read

It’s almost that time again. It seems like the time since Thanksgiving has really flown this year, and Christmas is upon us.

Thanks to my little buddy and guitar student, Evan (and his family), I now have a Shelf Elf. Check out http://www.elfontheshelf.com/content/about-us for info. According to my wife, Paulette, my mother-in-law had a shelf elf or two when Paulette was growing up.

Although most of my students know who the Shelf Elf is, there were still a few who had no idea. Basically, the elf hides in various places in order to watch you and sees if you’re naughty or nice. You cannot touch him, and he cannot speak or move while anyone is awake.

Evan has been telling me about them since last year, and this year he gave me an early gift of one-plus decorations for the little tree that he gave to me last year. I also got a fantastic pair of gloves that allow you to text while wearing them (but not while driving, of course).

This year, I have also discovered under armor (which I’m using as a generic name for really super-warm undergarments) that I got online from Sierra Trading Post (http://www.sierratradingpost.com). I have to thank Todd at Micarelli’s for turning me on to these life-saving undies.

Seriously, though, being older and currently slimmer than usual, I really feel the cold. Todd recently told me to look into the Under Armor shirts and pants. Although I didn’t buy that exact brand (due to the rather high prices), I eventually settled on enough to last me the winter as well as a nice jacket.

Once you make your first purchase from Sierra Trading Post, they bombard you with daily emails with more and more discounts and almost free shipping. In fact my inbox gets full of offers from various places I’ve dealt with over the year.

I also just paid my first monthly $645 premium since my wife eventually completed my enrollment in my new Obamacare health plan via the Healthcare.gov site. For anybody who just choked while reading this and seeing that price, consider that, for the last five years or so, we were paying about $2,000 a month for our joint healthcare, so what I’m paying now (for a better plan) seems a bargain.

With Christmas coming this week, I think again that we should implement Boxing Day into our holiday week over here. If you’re wondering what I’m rambling on about, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day will fill you in.

The “Limeys” will have had the usual British Christmas food and then watched the Queen’s speech. Thanks to this website at http://www.royal.gov.uk/imagesandbroadcasts/thequeenschristmasbroadcasts/ahistoryofchristmasbroadcasts.aspx, I found out that the first Christmas Broadcast was delivered by George V in 1932, and it has become a staple of English life. Most British families get ready at 3 p.m. on Christmas day to see the Queen, sometimes with the royal corgi dogs. It’s all so different from here that I know it seems a bit goofy, but you have to have lived there to appreciate it. Also check out http://www.santas.net/aroundtheworld.htm for Christmas traditions around the globe.

Another Brit tradition is Christmas crackers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cracker). These sit on the table at the main meal. To aptly describe what I’m talking about, I could do no better than to quote from that article, even though it sounds a bit crazy: “Crackers are typically pulled at the Christmas dinner table or at parties. In one version of the cracker tradition, the person with the larger portion of cracker empties the contents from the tube and keeps them.

In another, each person will have their own cracker and keep its contents, regardless of whose end they were in. Typically, these contents are a colored paper hat, a small toy, small plastic model or other trinket and a motto, a joke, a riddle or piece of trivia on a small strip of paper.

The paper hats, with the appearance of crowns, are usually worn when eating Christmas dinner. The tradition of wearing festive hats is believed to date back to Roman times and the Saturnalia celebrations, which also involved decorative headgear.”

So there you go, then. British Christmas may seem a bit crazy, and, after living here, I suppose it is unless you’ve lived or grown up there. I do still have many fond memories of Christmas there even though I’ve now lived in the U.S. for longer than I did in the UK.

Hopefully, you’ll get what you asked Santa for, and, with that thought, I’ll potter off and play on my guitar a bit until next week. Happy holidays from Mrs. Schulze, me and, of course, from Doren and his wife, Paula.