In the spirit of this wondrous holiday season I’ve planned a series of posts concerning the lessons I’ve learned about British Christmas traditions, one per day for the next twelve days. Though many of our rituals and celebrations have sprung from a common place, I’ve found enough examples over the years to contend that, while the message is universal, Christmas doesn’t look exactly the same in the US as it does in the UK.  Please enjoy my observations and, to my British readers, feel free to correct me if I’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick along the way.

When I was a kid, the yearly visit to Santa was an exciting yet daunting prospect.  Sure you got to tell Old St. Nick what you wanted for Christmas first hand. But there was the whole sitting on a strange man’s lap stipulation. ( I didn’t like strange men much when I…