CHRISTMAS SHOPPING & CAROLS

EXCELLENT NEW ADDITION TO OUR TREE: candy canes! Classic American Christmas treat and in keeping with our red, white and blue theme. Mmm, tasty too.

Man, it's so annoying. I started my Christmas shopping weeks ago and had almost everything for everyone by early December, having spent months planning and scheming.

Max, however, hasn't given it any thought, hadn't bought anything until yesterday, then spent an hour in Macy's and got the whole lot! No fair.

After the express Christmas shopping spree (which I spent in the lobby of Macy's, on the phone to Mum), we went to see 'Milk', which we very much enjoyed, though didn't necessarily love. James Franco was terrific, as was Josh Brolin, who I thought was extraordinary, and we could see that Sean Penn was really good and natural as Harvey Milk, but are kind of used to seeing him transform himself for roles, so somehow the very fact that he was convincing kind of made his performance less amazing to us.

What was amazing, however, were the trailers for 'Sunshine Cleaning' and 'The Wrestler', which we saw before the movie. Man alive, the one for 'The Wrestler' reduced me to tears - it's just great. And it helps that it's set to an amazing new Bruce Springsteen song:

Last night, we tried again with another film by the guy who wrote and directed the awesome 'Role Models', but unfortunately 'Wet Hot American Summer' was every bit as bad as 'The Ten', despite yet another stellar cast. We're going to give up now and assume that 'Role Models' was just a happy aberration.

I helped out at Sunday School this morning, but no-one turned up! So I hung around until church and was excited to see that David Plouffe's wife and little boy were reading the lesson and lighting the final Advent candle. David Plouffe stayed hidden away behind the lectern, but from where I was sitting, I could see him and it was so sweet when his little boy ran back to him after the reading, because Plouffe gave him a mini-fistbump! So that's where Obama gets it from...

We had a lovely webchat with Matt and Jilly when I got home, then walked up to the National Cathedral with Maxy for their Carols by Candlelight service. I'd never seen the stained glass windows in daylight before, and they're amazing.

It was a really beautiful service and a treat to sing carols in such an amazing building. Two choirs sang, both of whom were excellent, and halfway through we were given candles to hold during the prayers, the choir singing 'O Holy Night' and the congregation singing 'Silent Night' and 'Hark the Herald'. It was beeeautiful. Unfortunately Maxy spilt some melted wax on the coat slung over the chair in front of him, but otherwise the whole candle thing went well!

Among the familiar carols were some gorgeous pieces of music I'd never heard before. There was a really cool African hymn called African Noel arranged by Andre Thomas, in which the choir processed to the back of the church, chanting 'sing Noel' rhythmically and swaying from side to side. It was really cool and the rhythms and harmonies intertwined in really interesting ways. You can see far faster, less good version of the same carol here. We also heard O magnum mysterium by Morten Lauridsen, which was goosebump-inducingly beautiful, with its close harmonies and dissonances.

After the service, we decided to head up to Chevy Chase, to an independent cinema called the Avalon which we hadn't been to before, to see 'Happy-Go-Lucky', the new Mike Leigh film. On our way to the metro, we passed the most excellent example of what I thought Christmas in the American suburbs looks like:

The movie was terrific, we abolutely loved it. It captures London life so exactly, from the way people interact with the main character, to the way her flat is decorated, to the fact that it was filmed in and around Finsbury Park, including the street Max lived on when we first got together! It made us really nostalgic for London and I felt a bit smug that I was picking up loads of quintessential Britishisms that will've passed most of the audience by.

Apart from its improvised energy, it's quite an atypical Mike Leigh film, but probably the one I've enjoyed the most. The protagonist is Poppy, a primary school teacher living in London with her best mate, hanging out with her sister and getting driving lessons from a psychotic Daily Mail reading BNP-type played brilliantly by Eddie Marsan. Sally Hawkins - who it turns out I was at Edinburgh with, but don't remember, despite her directing me in our Freshers' Play - is luminous as the irrepressibly happy Poppy. I was a bit dubious when I read that the film is about someone who's really happy all the time, assuming it'd be about someone who's a bit simple and oblivious to what's going on around her.

But the strength of the film lies in the fact that Poppy is only too aware of what's going on - how the world can be rubbish, that her driving instructor is a nutter and life can be hard - but what's interesting and uplifting is that she makes the decision to be happy and not let stuff get her down. She's not obliviously happy; there's real strength in her.

After such a lovely day, we treated ourselves to supper out and went to a Greek restaurant down the road. It was alright, but overpriced. I miss the days when the exchange rate allowed us to eat out all the time and not worry about the cost. *sigh*