Gearing up for Christmas in Britain

The first term is almost done and finished, and Christmas is coming in full force.

Most things remain the same between American Christmas time and British Christmas time.  There are plenty of lights on the main streets, Christmas decorations dotting offices, houses, and rooms.  Even the supermarkets start selling Christmas items way in advance just as they do back home.

mulled wine winesediments.net

Differences noticed thus far have been slight, but fun to observe nonetheless.
Here in England, they have a winter drink I had never heard of before called "mulled wine."  This is defined by encyclopedia.com as "wine mixed with fruit juice, sweetened and flavoured with spices (especially cinnamon, cloves, and ginger), served hot."
This seems to be very popular here, and I've seen it all around.  What they don't have is hot apple cider.
Don't get me wrong, there is an abundance of cider here.  It's just that it is all alcoholic.
Back home, one of the staple winter hot drinks is apple cider.
See, in America, if cider has alcohol in it, it is known as "hard cider."

hot apple cider hotapplecider.ca

When I was asking people here if they'd had non-alcoholic cider before, they just asked if I meant apple juice.  Now, there is a difference between apple juice and apple cider.  Apple cider is non-processed and non-pasteurized, it is fresh and not filtered.  This gives it a shorter shelf life.
At any rate, hot apple cider in the States usually comes with some spices associated with it as well, such as cinnamon.

There is also a typical Christmas food here called a mince pie.  This is a very deceptive term, because in Britain, mince is beef bits.  Because of this, when invited to taste a mince pie, I was expecting some sort of meaty pot-pie type of food.  However, I learned after taking a bite that mince pies contain raisins, other fruit bits, and spices such as cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

On that note, in Britain, Christmas lights, such as the ones that go around the tree, are called "fairy lights."  Very interesting.

Another difference totally unrelated to Christmas but still popped into my head:
Eggs at the grocery store in America are refrigerated next to the milk section.

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Eggs at the grocery store in Britain are out on the shelves next the dry foods.

indyposted.com