A Different Kind of Christmas

Hello everyone!
Well to start, our performances of Alice in Wonderland were awesome last weekend!! Friday night started out a little rough, but a big thank you to Roisin, Gabriel, Coach, Cassandra, Michael, and all the other people from SIE who came to support us!
As we get closer and closer to Christmas, I can't help but think that this may be the strangest Christmas I've ever had. First of all, the grass is still green here. And I've been informed it always will be. If we get any snow here it will probably cause the whole country to come to a standstill, so maybe I won't be wishing for a white Christmas. Roisin, Cassandra and I decorated our kitchen for Christmas last week (procrastination at it's finest). We had a secret santa exchange at our SIE Christmas party on Thursday, which was also super fun. Our wonderful Denise put together a slideshow where everyone submitted pictures from our shenanigans first semester.
I'm so happy with how this first semester has gone; I feel like we've all really integrated ourselves into this university and met a lot of great people. I'll be missing my family this Christmas, but just a few days ago I booked tickets to go home for two weeks in January! It'll be fun to see my family and play in the snow :)
Being here for a few months has been a big eye-opener for me, in many ways. It's been amazing to live and go to school with people who grew up just a little bit differently than I did. I've learned so much; like the word "proper" being used as a word of emphasis for example. It's also inspired me to explore and travel my own country when I get back. There's so many places in the States that I haven't been, and I have a new found curiosity for my own country and culture as well as others.
As far as my Christmas break plans, I've pretty much got every week planned.
Next weekend I'll be in Dublin, Ireland...I can't even describe how excited I am for that.
Then I'll be back in Worcester for a couple days before Cassandra, Michael and I go to Twycross, England to spend Christmas with Gabriel. I'm so thankful for him and his family opening their home to us for the holiday.
Then the 28th we'll be going to Roisin's near Oxford and be there for New Year's.
Then January 9th I'm headed home!
That's all for now! Merry Christmas to all!!