I really need a change. My wife and 3 kids too.

I really love America,even though it is llegal to dump your trash on your own property anytime you see fit. I didn't see much of that in the UK. Nothing I hate more than to see a nice bit of forest with a few junk cars, or worse.

Then there are the lunatics. They come disguised as relatives during the holidays. As children we are exptected to have manners. As adults, many of us forget to be gracious and should look to the children as an example.

We prepared an epic meal for Christmas. About a dozen different sweets sat around the house. Dinner began with pigs in their blankets, salmon with caper dill sauce. Then there was a 15 pound standing rib roast with, neeps and tatties, brussel sprouts with chestnuts, Yorkshire pudding, haggis, whisky gravy, scotch eggs and more.

Pints of Boddingtons.

Dessert was Eton mess and tea. AMAZING!!

"There's too much meat."
"I can't eat raspberries."
"I don't think I can eat that." (haggis)
"Is there some kind of wierd spice in the gravy?"
"I don't think I would want milk in my tea."

It wasn't long until everyone was feeling tense. WHY?

Oh well, you can't please everyone. And, it isn't my responsibility as you are responsible for your own happiness. Don't make me miserable though.

I have been a song writer, screen writer, carpenter, manager and everthing in between. My wife has been an executive director, economic advisor and grant writer.

We would love a change.

We would entertain suggestions on how we could live in Enland. If you had a good one, we might even seriously consider it. There's always a way.

Thanks

Change number One: don't invite these people to your house for dinner again.
Change number Two: go to England for Christmas next year!
These are simple changes that don't require a complete shakeup, finding new schools and new jobs, and so on.

thats true, but I need a buffer zone. A trillion gallons of water might do it. I also would love to spend months on end stimulating my brain with some history.

Seriously love my family - but love them even more with the Atlantic Ocean between us

Cant help with the move, but we have been in the UK (from Vancouver) for over 4 years and cant imagine going back - LOVE it in the UK!

Good luck!!!

"As children we are exptected to have manners. "

We're not. If manners in children (or adults, or dogs) matter to you, England is not for you.

If you've acquired the bizarre belief somehow that Jane Austen wrote accurate travel guides, rather than works of fiction,I strongly suggest you rent a house somewhere in Middle England for three months.

Or quicker and cheaper: take a three month web sub to the Sun and the Daily Mail, tune your desktop permanently to Radio 2 and make sure you watch every episode of Coronation St, Eastenders and whatever Simon Cowell's about to inflict on us.

Not that any of us ever do anything so horrible. But it'll be a salutary reminder to count your blessings

Serve food people LIKE rather than see in magazines

Who doesn't like prime rib cooked to perfection with potatos? Never met anyone who didn't love sausage.

Eton mess? OMG...

If I were in England preparing traditional American foods for a holiday dinner, I wouldn't be surprised is some of my guests did not like them, especially if I in addition to the turkey and sweet potatoes I offered chitlins, turnip greens, fried green tomatoes, and sweet iced tea.

A gracious host considers what food and drink his guests would enjoy.

If your guests were adult, then I agree that the quoted comments are pathetic. There is no law that holiday meals have to conform to stereotype. (Though I hope there are wine as well as Boddington's?)

As to Flanner's suggestions, those newspapers and TV programmes are not representative of the UK population you would probably be mixing with, from the sound of your post. I do know some Mail readers (WHY is it considered suitable for women?)but they keep it quiet on the whole.

But, short of divorcing each other and finding new EU citizen partners, are you entitled to residence here? I solved my problem by marrying an Englishman 40 years ago but even that isn't such an easy solution these days.

Fly tipping - dumping your trash, cars, asbestos and any other unwanted beds, sofas etc in the countryside is very common in the UK. Plenty of country lanes and beauty spots suffer from this anti-social behaviour.

I am British, but I couldn't live in Britain any more. It is not the country I knew and whist I enjoy visiting I couldn't live there.

Moving to the UK is not simple. If you don't have jobs or residency rights it would be nigh on impossible.

I would start planning next years Christmas differently. Just tell people you want to spend it quietly with just the 5 of you. Book a trip to the UK for it if you like, or head for the sun for a few days. No one can force you to spend Christmas with them if you don't want to do it.

Well, that was an interesting Christmas menu, the likes of which I've never seen either side of the Atlantic Ocean. Were you trying to emulate a British Christmas dinner?

I'm an American who has lived in England for the last 40 years or so, and about the only thing you served that I've seen on the table every Christmas are the brussel sprouts (and not everyone likes them, either). It seems to me you were about a month too early for the haggis, tatties, and neeps, which I've enjoyed on Burns Night.

What's wrong with turkey? Bernard Matthews (rest his soul) made a fortune on them. Bootiful!

Salmon, primerib, yorkshire pudding and brussel sprouts is all that I would have eaten. Regarding the rest of the food I would have said "no thank you".

Seriously.....

Sounds to me like you did this entire meal just to show off "how cultured we are"...... Perhaps your realitives went home saying "do they always have to act superior because they went to England"?

Perhaps they felt tense becasue you went out of your way to make them uncomfortable at a family meal by trying to prove "it's so much better there"

Sounds to me like there were opportunities for improvement on both sides of the table here.

You should have invited me instead... would have eaten everything with great pleasure and without a single complaint, plus i would have brought you a super xmas gift.....
Keep that in mind for next year

The only way haggis, neeps and tatties will become one of the great foods of the world instead of a food dish indigenous to less than .1% of the world's population is by fiat.

And anyone seeking to avoid red meat would be a bit put out by the main protein options in that meal: prime rib and sausage.

("Who doesn't like prime rib cooked to perfection with potatos [sic]? Never met anyone who didn't love sausage." -- No vegetarians in your world?)

I can think of a host of desserts that would easily rank above Eton mess. Many are French, others are British, American, Italian, and Japanese.

Look: family ties are the ones that bind and gag (apologies to Erma Bombeck) and you are now free from those blasted people so enjoy recouping your sanity. But moving to the UK? A bit extreme. Just get mail order from Myers of Keswick instead.

Well, we have found that there are rude people pretty much everywhere. We've even met quite a few rude British people.

But, overall, most people are pretty nice the world over if you give them half the chance.

"Eton Mess" sounds a lot like an Australian Pavlova, but with less work. I wonder where meringue nests are sold in the U.S.?

Have you spent much time in England? You need to go for at least a month...or maybe two, so you can decide where you'd prefer to settle. Then figure out if/how you can do it permanently.

I buy meringue nests at a local bakery in Louisville, KY.