a sherlock christmas carol

We were all up and alive and well by mid-morning today, and got ready to leave the house by noon for a ride over to Baker Street to see “A Sherlock Carol” at the Marylebone Theatre. I got tickets to this play weeks ago when I was searching for any productions of A Christmas Carol (and first accidentally bought tickets to a production in Belfast).

The Kiwis got tickets too but hadn’t yet planned the logistics of their trip to Cologne Christmas markets, so it ended up that they had to wake up at 5am in Cologne for a 6am train to London and literally come straight from the station to the theatre. Needless to say 7 hours of travel and straight into a dark theatre wasn’t ideal, but thanks to my dad and sister still slightly jet-lagged they weren’t the only ones struggling to stay awake (even James and Bill almost nodded off, though weirdly I didn’t at all).

I didn’t have a sense of just how strong of a fan base there is for Sherlock Holmes here in London, so it was genuinely fun to walk past the Sherlock Holmes museum and see enthusiasts throughout the Baker Street area – I particularly liked the young woman on the train with a Sherlock book purse and detective cap.

The play was truly well done, a very creative interweaving of a Sherlock mystery with classic Dickensian elements: the basic plot was a haggard and hopeless Holmes (“bah!” without the “humbug”) trying to solve the mystery of Ebenezer Scrooge’s murder. The cast of six played over a dozen characters, some favorites of which were a grown-up Tiny Tim (running the children’s hospital) and a Dr. Watson with the great line when the doorbell rings, “it must be the neighbors seeing if we’re [sees Sherlock]. . . Holmes?”

The Kiwis dragged themselves and their luggage back to Chiswick while we went just a couple blocks away to a pub for lunch. We had a solid meal along with an excellent peach-raspberry cider and then took the tube two stops to Oxford Circus to do a final (I hope!) tour of the Christmas lights in central London.

Unfortunately it was very crowded and cold, but we managed a good portion of the best spots before my dad took the tired boys home in an uber and Jess, Bill, and I continued onwards for a glance into Fortnum & Mason and then a tube ride from Piccadilly Circus. Jess and my dad both snuck in much-needed naps while Bill and I got to serious work in the kitchen.

Tomorrow truly kicks off the holiday week since we’re celebrating Thanksgiving with the Kiwis and cousin Sam. I am desperate to prove that Thanksgiving is a delicious feast and that candied yams are not what the Roebuck made them out to be. So tonight I prepped those along with homemade pumpkin pie including a from-scratch pie crust solely because they simply do not make store-bought ones here so I had no choice. I also made cornbread for the stuffing and dough for the buttermilk biscuits.

It was many hours of work but nice to get back into that cooking flow that I haven’t done in forever, managing multiple recipes at once and being creative with using what I had on hand. There’s no rolling pin here so I washed one of the sodastream CO2 canisters which worked perfectly. Fortunately there’s plenty of things here that are a treat to us: high-quality grocery store mashed potatoes, pre-cooked turkey, and a gorgeous buttercream yule log so I didn’t have to worry about baking something chocolate. Tomorrow we feast!