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“Chrismas cake”? “Royal icing”? And I’ve never seen marzipan on a cake!
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Don’t tell me you don’t have Christmas cake in the States either? No crackers, no mince pies, no Christmas cake. Personally I don’t care for the pies or the cake, but still, what kind of Christmas is that? 
We have crackers. Costco has good ones. (Target, not so good.)
The US is much more into Christmas cookies. Christmas is probably the biggest home baking season of the year, and there are SO MANY kinds of Christmas cookies made.
Yeah, Harry is not attractive to me–there’s something in his face that says “mean temper” to me. Poor guy, he’s probably harmless!
Thank you for putting into words why I don’t like Camilla. Not that Charles is not to blame (and to some extent Diana, too), but Camilla certainly didn’t try real hard to turn Chuck away.
*Bonus at the link, TPT w/ her original pre-coke nose! /wistful off/
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We do Christmas cookies, no figgy or plum pudding, no cake. Christmas crackers are gaining in popularity here–my family has them with Christmas breakfast (started because my MIL would not give up Christmas dinner, not even for one year). I like the crackers. You can keep the cake!
There’s no customary Christmas dessert in the U.S. (the way pumpkin pie is traditional at Thanksgiving, for instance), although Christmas cookies of all shapes and sizes are always popular. Fruitcake is usually derided as inert, inedible and given as a gift but never actually eaten.
People magazine seems to be hinting a bit, too: http://www.people.com/people/package/gallery/0,,20395222_20486003,00.html
The standard joke is that there were ever only about 100 fruitcakes ever actually made. People just keep giving the same ones to different people every year.
Although my mother loved fruitcake. I never did understand that. It’s incredibly dense, kind of waxy and the “fruit” all tastes like sugar-soaked lemon slices.
Hmm, the thing is that you don’t have the music, it’s just the words in the service sheet/Mass booklet. To be honest I was disappointed seeing how few people were actually singing properly - the hymns chosen are so well known that pretty much anyone could at least “La la laaa” to two of them. And I do mean everyone not just those of a religious bent - “Cwm Rhondda/Guide me oh Thy Great Redeemer” is a sung at Welsh rugby matches, “Jerusalem” is an unofficial anthem of England and regularly sung in public schools … if I’d been out in the crowd I’d have been singing. Ok, I’m getting down off my soapbox now.
From the press he’s gotten, he’d do well to be ‘taken in hand’, as it were, by a strong-minded gal; it won’t be long before he’s going to have to end his beloved military career and take over some Royal duties - especially if the Duke and Duchess have their first child soon. Harry’s got some settling down to do, so if you were him would you live it up like a madman while you could or decide to calm down gradually? It’s tough when your life’s not really your own. His purported on/off girlfriend Chelsy Davy was at the wedding but looked like she’d been dragged backwards through a hedge; maybe she’d been crying? Maybe they had a quick shag before Harry caught up w/ Wills? It was her chance to be seen as a hopeful Royal fiancee and she blew it (if indeed she wanted it.)
I think as we watch her sons throughout their lives we’re going to see how far-reaching Diana’s absence is; have you known anyone to lose a parent in their childhood/teens and not have it always affect them?
Cat Jones, the programme is online in .pdf; I thought I’d seen the music in there but now I have to see if it was just my imagination. We had ‘Love Divine, All Love Excelling’ in our wedding as well, hubby’s pick; he watched the wedding w/ the Brits he works w/ in Afghanistan and was tickled to recognize it.
OTOH, I can see the tabloid headlines if Elton John had decided to belt out “Bread of Heaven” in the style of “Candle in the Wind”. It might have looked prima donna-ish. Maybe for the sake of discretion he opted for the traditional practice of mumbling the words while looking slightly uncomfortable.
Yep, sure enough - just the words. (You’ll need to flip through, it’s maybe the 8th page.) I’m sure you all know the Eddie Izzard bit about C of E’ers singing hymns, but if you don’t here it is. Note: Eddie’s diction here is still better than Sir Elton’s. David Furnish’s diction appeared to be better than Sir Elton’s, actually, like he was glad to be on equal musical footing w/ his partner for once.
There’s such a thing as “mincemeat pie” but few Americans have ever eaten it even on Christmas. “Crackers”? Like, saltines or triscuits?
To make things still more confusing, the Brits would call those “biscuits,” I believe.
These are Christmas crackers
from Wikipedia:-
A cracker consists of a cardboard tube wrapped in a brightly decorated twist of paper, making it resemble an oversized sweet-wrapper. The cracker is pulled by two people, and, much in the manner of a wishbone, the cracker splits unevenly. The split is accompanied by a small bang produced by the effect of friction on a chemically impregnated card strip (similar to that used in a cap gun).
Don’t think so–biscuits are what we call cookies. What do they call the base of many canapes?
I’m pretty sure that’s what BrainGlutton said - that cookies are biscuits. As to the base of canapes, they’re biscuits. As in “mini oatmeal biscuits”.
When my paternal grandmother was still alive, she served mincemeat pie every Christmas. She was the only one who ever ate it. We haven’t had it since she died.
:smack: I didn’t see that for some odd reason.
So crackers as in small, dry salty squares are never called crackers over there? Are they called water crackers or wafers?
We do have Ritz crackers over here, but we also have cream crackers which go very well with cheese. This is because their rather bland taste does not swamp that of the cheese. My favourites are water biscuits, which go very well with Stilton cheese.
We have an Indian grocer a few miles up the freeway called Anapurna and when I go I stock up on McVities biscuits, esp. mango creme. So when they said McVities made one of the groom’s cakes, w/ biscuits, I was jealous. Who wouldn’t want to eat a cake half made of cookies???
I hope William and Kate actually had a chance to taste 'em. Many brides and grooms are so swamped by family and friends that they forget, or never have the opportunity, to enjoy the grub. When my wife and I got married, the caterers packed a picnic basket of food from the reception to take with us when we drove off. We were very appreciative.