Joyeaux Noel

(I am not very good at Klatchian - am I a NKSB?)

Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, and so on. It is the Celebration of Christmas. The celebration of the birth of Christ. The Catholic Church would have us believe that Jesus is therefore 2007 years old. But the general belief is that he was born in about 6BC. The choice of December 25th is harking back to the Saturnalia celebrations of the (Northern) Winter Solstice. It was the traditional end of the agricultural year.

Later, the Celebration of Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus) was added, and thus came the tradition of giving and receiving gifts - although many traditions have gift giving involved. The Germanic tradition of decorated trees - likely a Norse religious tradition - was introduced to the English speaking world by Prince Albert, Prince consort (husband) to Queen Victoria in the 19th Century.

We celebrate Christmas in our family by giving and receiving gifts - loads for the children, and a few each for the adults. We will eat ham and pork today, but most years we have cold chicken, and salad. We will at some stage have plumb pudding and custard. Most of what we eat is chosen by the old person.

The boys will play with their gifts for the remainder of the week and then spend the remainder of their holidays complaining about how bored they are. This is some childhood tradition, I suppose.

I received an Ood, some hatching dragon ornaments and a pair of pedal pushers. The old person received a bag for going to the races and a gift card for K-Mart. The daughter got a gift card for Sanity, a light blanket, a footspa from her boys - where the boys received pencil cases and all of the items that you can imagine go in a pencil case and then some, a tamagotchi - electronic pets, books, t-shirts, sneakers and other junk.

I am happy with my things, the old person is happy, the daughter is happy and the boys are happy.

Happy Christmas.