On the twenty-fourth day of Christmas...

...we partook of a "double - feature".  First stop:  the English National Ballet's production of The Nutcracker (as the reviewer wrote...."Dr. Suess-like" characters), but still quite entertaining.  And those ENO theater seats were VERY comfortable.

The lunch break between shows included a burger and fries (you can take the girl out of Texas but not Texas out of the girl).  To be fair, we had tried to get Tex-Mex at our local haunt close to Trafalgar Square but it was closed on Christmas Eve Day.  No worries...I can do the burger/fries routine any day....

Next stop:  a brief walk throught the Christmas fun-fair at Leicester Square...



then on to the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland.  It was the quintessential German Christmas Market (and we felt oddly comforted by that somehow).  After an hour of walking about, and having an obligatory mug of hot cider....















we then proceeded to the second show of the day, the Royal Albert Hall's Christmas Eve Candleight Carols service. 



All your favorite Christmas Carols (many of them to the tunes of UK carols, not the US versions, so that through us a bit), candlelight, lots of guys dressed up in powdered wigs and sporting "Mozart-like" clothes. Still...a lovely evening.  The Hachie Gal was clearly an extra instrument in this orchestra as by now, the nose blowing of the cold was taking on epic proportions.  Could have been a tuba in the orchestra.

Next stop:  Christmas Eve and the opening of the presents.  We had a little help.















The best gift the Budman and I received this year was this little yellow kitty making it to Christmas!  She can still move when she wants to.