STEPHEN LEWIS browses through Christmas emails from York expats scattered around the world.

WHILE you're tucking into your turkey this December 25, with hail rattling against the window and wind shrieking through a crack in the door, spare a thought for the poor exiles spending Christmas far from our cold and wintry shores.

From the sun-baked beaches of Bermuda to the majestic glory of the Canadian Rockies, there are York expats all over the world.

You may envy them as the rain and drizzle start to leak through the eaves - but many of them will be envying you, too. Because no matter where they live, as December 25 approaches, their thoughts all turn to home.

Here's a selection of Christmas greetings from those around the world who carry York forever in their hearts...

CANADA

Ann Tiffany left York in 1964 with her husband and two small children "in search of adventure and perhaps a better life".

"Canada is a beautiful country with vast areas of forest and stunning lakes and mountains," the retired nurse writes. "But I thought I had come to the back of beyond as the train took us across this great country.

"We travelled four days and nights to Prince George in British Columbia. My heart sank as day after day went by with hardly any visible population."

As the train pulled into the Canadian Rockies, though, she thought her heart would break at the beauty of the mountains towering around her.

She's been in the town of Prince George ever since and brought up her three children there. Now retired, she has three grandchildren too.

Winters can be harsh, she admits - but the skiing and snow-mobiling is great. On Christmas morning she'll be at her daughter's, tucking into a brunch of eggs Benedict, bacon, sausages and waffles. Afterwards she'll return home for turkey and all the trimmings - including Yorkshire pudding - later in the day.

But her thoughts will turn to family and friends in York - mum Ivy Stubbs, now 93, and her brother, sisters, sister-in-law and cousins. "Merry Christmas to you all," she says.

Email: tiffann@telus.net

GERMANY

Michael Langer, a roving IT contractor born in Vienna and brought up in California who's worked all over the world, isn't really a Yorkie at all.

He came to York in 1995, supposedly for three months - but ended up falling in love with the city and didn't want to leave. "Unfortunately," he writes, "I met a girl from Dusseldorf in Germany, and that's where we're living now." He's determined to come back, though, and hopes one day to retire here to run a pub.

Christmas he'll spend in front of a huge Christmas fire in Saxony - but his thoughts will be here. "Greetings to all the lucky fellas who can live and love in York," he says.

SAUDI ARABIA

DOCTOR David Burton, director of the British Council in Saudi Arabia, says he has fond memories of York. He and his wife Denise first came to the city in 1980 when courting, and bought their wedding rings in a shop on Lendal Bridge. "We have been regular visitors since and in 1995 ... our two boys Paul and Luke enrolled as boarders at Bootham School. They were joined by their sister Nikki in 1997 at which time we sold our house in the south and bought a bungalow in Acomb. "Season's greetings to York, and may all who live there appreciate what a wonderful city they live in."

Email: december@awalnet.net.sa

BERMUDA

Former Archbishop Holgate's pupil and Rowntree apprentice Geoff Yeomans left York in 1988 for a job as an electrical technologist in Bermuda - an island, he says, where tourism and hospitality is the only real industry.

He and his wife Cynthia plan to spend both Christmas and New Year in Scotland, where they will be moving next April. "But I'll be in York for our son John's wedding on Easter Monday," Geoff says.

UNITED STATES

EX-St Peter's School pupil Harold Walker admits his 'new' home of Cape Cod has only one thing in common with York - history.

Not, he agrees, that it's history is quite as long and distinguished as York's. "But it does track back to the very beginning of the United States as we know it today." Cape Cod, he says, was where the pilgrims landed: and some areas are preserved just as they were in the 1600s. Harold, now retired, rates it as "one of the finest places in the USA to live".

Harold became a naturalised US citizen in 1960. "But I have never given up my British heritage nor my British nationality," he says. Now the kids are grown up, he says, Christmas will be a quiet affair. "A pleasant day doing very little. Perhaps tea and scones, a home made pork pie a la York style... and of course telephoning my brother Robert who still lives in York."

Email: reklaw@mediaone.net

Judith York plans to have 16 people for supper on Christmas Eve at her apartment in Falls Church, Northern Virginia - near Washington DC. It will be roast beef and ham on the menu, trifle for desert - son Andrew cooking, hubby Jim looking after the drinks, and Judith washing up.

Judith was born in the John Bull Inn in Layerthorpe. She left school in York at 16, worked here for six years then emigrated to the States in 1966 aged 22. Northern Virginia, she says, is multi-cultural. "We have a young family from Saudi Arabia on one side of our apartment and some Ethiopian students on the other. Nearby lives an elderly American couple and a family from Puerto Rico." She still thinks of York as her 'home town' though. "I love to walk around, browse in the stores, go to a coffee shop, and catch up on the local news," she says.

IRELAND

"Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year!" writes Valerie Scott from Limerick, where she lives with boyfriend Brian. Valerie left York in 1997, but admits she's feeling "really homesick".

She sends Christmas greetings to "Mum, Christine, Chris, Neil, Jennifer, Malcolm, Heather and Jason."

BELGIUM

It only seems like yesterday that Tony 'Tippler' Mallet was penning his column about York's pubs for the Evening Press.

Now he's in Brussels working for the ex-pat news weekly The Bulletin - and sampling plenty of blond Belgian beer. "The beer is probably the best in the world," he writes gleefully. But we know he still misses York.

WALES

FINALLY, over to Cardiff and Albert Redpath - brother of John Redpath, York's very own Town Crier.

Albert works as a bingo hall manager in Tonyrefail in the Rhondda Valley, but lives in Cardiff and is trying to persuade the capital city of Wales to appoint its own Town Crier. "Cardiff is a wonderful place to live, the people are very friendly - but I do miss all my friends in York."

BAHRAIN

"IT was great to hear from you back there in York," writes former Yorkie Brian Davis.

"As an ex-Archbishop's lad I still hanker for York's excellent pubs. "Bahrain, being in the Arabian Gulf, is Moslem but does permit alcohol, which we attempt to consume in ever larger quantities, much to the benefit of the government of course, who tax it at 150 per cent.

"I left York more than 20 years ago, and represent one of the longer serving ex-pats here. I boarded at Archies' when the headmaster was the much-loved Donald Frith who recently died. "There are other ex-Yorkies here - Paul Holmes runs the country's biggest insurance company.

"Me? Well it's car rental of all things, a bit odd for a zoology graduate, but it helps pay the kids' school fees - one of whom, Stephen, is now at St. Peter's in York and loving the cold, wet, windy weather.

"Most days here it is sunny, sometimes a bit too sunny. "August reached 55C every day - quite ridiculous, but it's rarely wet. This friendly country, an island between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, only has half a million people - the whole thing would fit between York and Tadcaster."

Click here to read more Christmas messages from York ex-pats