Happy holidays all!

Even though Christmas has come and gone in a haze, I did manage to attend two holiday parties and a wedding. So, two nights of indulging in sweet and savory treats...not to mention the week before, with co-workers bringing in all manner of cookies and pastries to tempt the palate and widen the waistline. I've still not managed to be organized enough to send out Christmas cards, but there's still a few days until New Year's...

Merry Christmas?

Hmm, lots of thoughts but no time to sit down and write them out. Lately I've been wierded out going about town: Christmas carols play on radio stations and shopping malls, and bus drivers have been seen donning Santa hats and suits. All this in a Taoist-Buddhist society. Smacks strongly of commercialism. Yet, because Christmas isn't really part of the culture, there's none of that holiday stress that one lately reads about in the American press: no multitude of holiday office parties and festivities for one to worry about weight gain, and none of the pressure of gifts for one to worry about the wallet. I told Neil that there was no need to give gifts for Christmas this year as we already gave to each other while in the U.S. during Thanksgiving. Recently I've just been in a very socially-concious, anti-consumerist mood.

In other news, happy birthday to my dearest brother Galen! He is most certainly the one I miss most about not living in the U.S.