Getting into the spirit cabinet

Really looking forward to the Christmas break. Was only sort of looking forward to it before as we're heading up to England and my dream was to head somewhere warm, sunny and non-Christian for Christmas. I believe that Jeebus was probably the Word Made Flesh, but come on, we all know he wasn't born in December, let's call a pagan New Years' ritual a pagan New Years' ritual. If the celebrations involved an elaborate ritual of the citizenry stripping naked and chasing a sacrificial greased pig across the snow, ripping it to pieces with their bare hands, roasting it on a fire, and then cunningly releasing a cute little greased piglet from below the ashes while everybody applauds and releases fireworks, then I could really get into it.

As it is - trudging along extremely crowded shopping thoroughfares in the biting Belgian rain, wracking your brain to try to remember if you've already bought your brother John Lennon's 'Rock'n'roll', and buying train or plane tickets during the peak price season, nominally to celebrate the birthday of a guy who was probably actually born in a less fucking shitty month, like August - I think Christmas would be a great season for touring the marijuana plantations of the Chefchaouen region in Morocco. Oh well. I'm just whining, really. I enjoy having family obligations very much - the alternative would be crap. So instead of going to the Rif mountains to get monumentally fucked up in the sun, we're going to fucking Scandinavia, which includes the British Isles whether they or Scandinavia like it or not. It's so fucking dark up there. Sooooo dark.

But I'm looking forward to seeing Mum, and the beauties of the Yorkshire Dales even though they'll only be illuminated by about two hours of daylight, and now also looking forward to a couple of days in London where the F-word, a fanboy, gets to see the terracotta army of the first Chinese emperor and I get to see one of my crazy old friends, and then New Year's, which we're spending with some of the F-word's crazy old friends (and I'm seeing our sweetheart in Oxford, Melbine). AND I won't be working. For nearly two weeks. This is a HUGE deal to me. The last time I didn't work for two weeks was my thesis defense trip, and I had to defend a thesis then, not to mention sleep off a breakdown, so it really didn't count. This is why I came to Europe. The periods of not working and still getting money. Oh, the joy.