Happy Christmas Eve...

Or, whatever...

Sorry. The Christmas spirit is being upheld in my current house-hold simply 'cause we're doing "family" stuff.

In fact... My wife and her mother-in-law (my mom) are currently up in the kitchen preparing a turkey.

Interesting, no?

No, seriously... I'm a bit apprehensive. Half of the sit-coms in America have dealt with the "first Christmas" thing, and invariably, the battles begin, or at least the battle-lines are drawn in the kitchen. They seem to be really happy right now, and everything seems to be going very well... Is it the "calm before the storm" or are they actually preparing to open hostilities and soon the world will crumble...

Well, they're both still smiling, so... I don't know. It seems to be all Dalai Lama in the house, at the moment...

But anyhoo... "Christmas." Lately our current Nazi-Pope had just decried the "commercialism" of the Christmas season. (not supplying the link, ya'all can find it if you really want to.) But seriously... Thanks Ratszinger... You're right. It's really commercial. But you know what, bud? No one cares. Nothing you say will have any bearing on anything anyone in the West will do. It's unfortunate, that the Catholic Church has lost it's Western flock... And It is even MORE unfortunate that the Nazi-Pope was elected... 'Cause all the good Catholics are living in South America or Africa, and the church completely ignored it's supposed "third-world" flock by electing the Nazi-Pope... So your eminence... Deal with it.

I digress...

Yeah... (I hate to admit this) but yeah... I agree with Nazi-Pope. Christmas HAS lost its real meaning in the rush to shop. It's unfortunate.

The fact is... The only way to try to hold onto the "feeling" and "true-meaning" of this holiday season, is to be with your family, cook together... Eat together, and be together. Ignore the fact that it's the last shopping day of the season, and stay home! It's that simple. We have an enforced weekend of being domestic. I'm sure it's driving a lot of American's insane, as they'd all rather be able to go to work... Or... If you're a Brit, half of you are currently at the pub, as I write this, and although you 'can't' actually be in the pub tomorrow... You're going to be there on Boxing Day (St. Steven's Day, or the 26th of Dec.) and you're going to be trying to recover from all the "domesticity" that you had to put up with on the 25th.

But you shouldn't be like that... Neither the Yanks or Brits should be the way we are... We should be enjoying the season, the enforced rest (if you're non-religious) that this time brings us. Your family won't be around for the rest of your life. All life moves on... All people must also. So... You know what?

I'm going to enjoy my first "Christmas" with my wife and my mother... I'm going to enjoy going to my crazy extended-familial mess tomorrow with all my crazy cousins and aunts and uncles, and try to enjoy everything about this time.

It's time... It'll be gone too soon. And like a normal person, I'm going to bemoan the lost opportunities. But... Hopefully, I won't dwell TOO much on what I have missed. Simply 'cause for now, I'm going to carpe diem the hell out of this time.

Slàinte!
Tuckmac