that's exactly what i was doing when i just snuck out of the school nativity play there. god they where awful. :smileys:
Just got back from holiday this morning to be reminded the Christmas tree has to go up and that the decorations will be up until the 18th of Jan. With the missus being orthodox we have 2 Christmas days. 25th December and the 7th Jan. [emoji26]
Ha! It's pretty much all done. Tree up a week ago, various prezzies at the foot of it. Stuff sent to England for parents. Most cards done (all the important ones). Absurd lights on the house. Gingerbread men made (but not the mince pies yet). That's the stress over with.
It's not much to do with Jesus really. More a chance to celebrate the midwinter and the days getting longer again. It's a pagan feast, which is why it makes no sense in the southern hemisphere. What are they celebrating? The days getting shorter? I like a good Christmas.
I hope you are going to send my superb jungldrum.com eCards instead of emails. Much more amusing. Not a huge selection of Christmas cards, true. But then we tend to buy the real thing in packets and send identical cards to all and sundry, so does it matter? My sprouts are still on the bush/tree/plant in the veggie garden, waiting for the 24th to be picked.
Mrs Pico had me drag 17 boxes/bags of decorations out the loft, 2 days to put that lot up and she thinks the back of the house looks a bit bare so back in the loft today. deep joy
It's highly impressive that you would actually own 17 boxes/bags of decorations. It must be like Santa's Grotto in your place. And yet you have even more! Mrs. Pico is right. No point having all that stuff just gathering dust in the loft.
It's good to take a winter break, spend time relaxing with friends and family, give each other nice stuff, eat lots of good food, celebrate old traditions, get in some R&R, and recharge batteries ready for the rigours of next year. That's what it's all about. The only annoying bit is the religionists who keep trying to drag all their obsessions about god, etc into it.
They do the same at Easter which is a perfectly good pagan festival around rebirth and renewal, seeing as it's spring. Yup, the religionists have hijacked our parties!
My Christmas isn't really like that. I enjoy it but don't decorate until a day or two before Christmas Day. I enjoy buying presents, getting just the right one. I used to spend ages choosing cards getting the right one for each person but realised no cares so I buy one design that I really like, this year is the RBL Ceramic poppy card, beautiful. I will start wrapping next week. I am also ready to clear the decorations after the new year. Usually putting stuff away from New Year's Day, tree is the last thing to go on or just before the sixth.
