From Where You'd Rather Be

Aldeburgh, Suffolk

My friends and I were very excited by the possibility of having a "White Christmas"-inspired by years of watching American Christmas films, seeing white snowy landscapes on Christmas cards and eating gingerbread houses covered in white icing...now that we were unable to have a day at the beach or by the pool, we had our fingers crossed!!!

We were told that the area of 'Suffolk' in the UK was a lovely place to holiday and out of a few towns we found, we chose to visit 'Aldeburgh' (pronounced All-bra by the English, not Al-de-burgh as the spelling suggests!). It was a town by the seaside and seemed very apt for a group of Aussies familiar with a seaside Christmas.

The town of Aldeburgh was such a cute typically English town. The doorways reflected the shorter heights of generations past and therefore each cottage appeared slightly like a doll's house! It was the perfect location for a holiday to "get away" from the city with the company of friends and family. We had stocked up on all our Christmas feast essentials and food for the other three days at M&S (Marks and Spencers) in London before getting the train and cab to our cottage as we did not want to find that the only supermarket in Aldeburgh was out of stock right before Christmas or worse-closed! 

As we arrived late at night, our first morning we were surprised by just how close the seaside really was-only one row of houses stood between us and the pebbles (what they refer to as a 'beach' here!). It was beautiful and so strange to walk along a beach in the cold on Christmas Eve. The giant scallop sculpture down one end of the beach was breathtaking with the sunset behind it and the tiny house that took up the space of one parking spot in a carpark was adorable! We played hide and seek amongst the boats on the pebbles on Christmas Eve and then went for a celebratory drink at a local pub. As we left we heard bells chiming and the locals (which seemed to have been hiding prior to this evening) all heading up the hill to the church. We realised they were all headed to midnight mass and feeling happy and carefree we thought what a great idea. A good cultural experience but about 5 minutes into the formalities we wondered if it would be obvious if we all tried to sneak out wearing our gumboots ("wellies"). The boredom seemed to go on forever and we entertained ourselves playing chinese whispers and watching each other try not to fall asleep. It was all worthwhile in the end because as we left the church the snow started to fall...

Christmas Day was as white a Christmas as we'd ever had before. There was a light covering on the ground, which had melted by midday. It was a fantastic atmosphere with our fireplace and Christmas feast which we all cooked together-even the turkey was a success-it made us all feel very grown up!!! We played Monopoly, ate and drank, exchanged presents and had one of the most memorable next couple of days walking through the village and relaxing by the fireplace.