Miss Turner! They aren't called tooth picks. That's silly, you don't pick your teeth with them...

She may not, but we Americans definitely do. Last week was Book Week at school, so not only did I get to see the new (and best so far) Harry Potter film, but I got to dress as a book character at school. Guess who I chose? Hint: not Ron or Harry...After being told that the large diet coke we ordered was probably a small in America, we went to the 10:45 showing and spent 2.5 hours glued to the screen.


On Sunday we went to "The Big Switch On," which is a very clever name for the night that they switch all the lights on. It was in the market square, we got to watch a parade, listen to some music, Michael Jackson made an appearance (too soon, too weird), and Santa Claus came!! It didn't hold a candle to the Lighting of the Lawn (pun intended), but it was fun to sing Christmas songs! Afterward we went to dinner with Peyton's parents at the Anchor. Spent the rest of the week in anticipation...


HAPPY TURKEY DAY! School on Thanksgiving? Weird. On Wednesday I led a school-wide assembly (200 children are more intimidating than they seem) about Thanksgiving and was surprised when I found out that almost none of the teachers even knew why we celebrate it. We acted out the story with pilgrim and indian hats and talked about what we have to be thankful for. Here's what some of the students at Cherry Hinton are thankful for:

- squash (3 of them said this until I realized I was holding up a picture of squash...whoops)
- hot dogs
- sausage
- cakes
(I may have emphasized the food aspect of the holiday a bit much...)
- Then, FINALLY, mum and dad
- my class (that was one of my students!)
- and my TEACHER (which could have been any of the 7 adults that work in our class, but I know who I'm pretending she was talking about...)


Then, on Thursday, we woke up to a beautiful spread as prepared by Pete: salmon and omlettes, sausage, ham, melon, tomatoes, oranges. After school, we headed over to Ellie and Richard's flat for a traditional thanksgiving dinner where we made stuffing, green beans and new potatoes (my contribution), sweet potato casserole, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, turkey, and....drumroll please....HELEN MADE US A PECAN PIE! Before we ate, we all said what we were thankful for- I think only about 5 out of 10 were actually crying... Then, after dinner we opened our poppers, wore our crowns, told our jokes, and enjoyed our party favors. Still trying to work out what I'll be doing with my new cuff links...


This weekend we are going to Ellie's City of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra concert, ICE SKATING AT PARKER'S PIECE, and may be Christmas Caroling on Sunday...It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!