Happy Christmas!

So, if you didn't know, the Whorton family Christmas has gone European; it is basically like Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation meets European Vacation. Needless to say, we have been busy for the last week, and thus I have taken a vacation/break/holiday (whichever one means actually doing no work) from blogging. I have also had to let some of this time fall into the blogging black hole, because I have blogging principles--namely that blogging laughs never come at other peoples' expense, and if they do, those people must be unnamed and unlikely (with 99% confidence) to be identified. Well, let's just suffice to say that there have been some bloggable moments that would violate these principles. However, here is what I can tell you:

1. We have photographed probably 30-40 doors in Oxford. I was going to say that we had takn a picture of EVERY door in Oxford, but clearly that would have been an exaggeration. After all, the bathroom doors aren't that interesting.
2. Luke and I had a bet about how long it would be before papa Whorton started mimicking the British accent. I had confidence that Dad would hold off on accent imitation. Luke won the bet by a landslide.
3. A guy passing me near the bus station in Warwick (pronounced War-ICK; the second "w" is silent. We had to have several family discussions about this before we all internalized the change. Other pronunciation challenges have included: Worcester--pronounced WUSS-ter, not like worcstester sauce (like that one is easier or more logical) like one family member liked to maintain.), said "Hail Hitler" in German as he walked past. What do I do to attrack this stuff?! (see "Say What?!" below.) I am not wearing any American flags, talking about George Bush, or doing anything else to attract excessive attention to myself, so I am a bit baffled.
4. Overall, we are taking the continent by storm. We are figuring out the culture, pronunciation, and sights everywhere we go. After a few days in London, not sure if it is our (collective) favorite place, but we are returning for two more days; including a stop at Harrods (which is a department store that is basically a mall in and of itself) on the 26th. (Think the traffic at the local mall on th 26th, and then make that local mall the Mall of America, and then place the Mall of America in New York City. Now think about how much FUN that is going to be.) Ready or not, here we come.

Happy Christmas everyone. May you enjoy time with your family wherever you are, and not allow the bustle of the city, the quiet of the country, or the preparations everywhere in between to drown, dim, or crowd out the Powerful Peace whose arrival was announced through the infant cries that pierced the stillness of earth two-thousand years ago.