So this is Christmas!

It snowed this week, amazingly it snowed and it stuck, I haven't prepared the photos, but might post one before new year.
The temperature dropped to -2 C at one point. Clearly it's been the coldest in the 6 years I have been here.
Boy is here. He is here for the first half of the holidays, so there is for once, no need to role play Christmas this year. It will happen as it should. Tonight we will eat beautifully and badly at the same. Salmon and foie gras, with champagne and blinis. It's a tradition. There will be no oysters as I am the only one who adores them, and I just can't manage all those oysters by myself.
Tomorrow morning on the 25th of December we will open our presents together. There will be no falseness in pretending. Santa doesn't have to come early or late. Everything for us for once will be the same as everyone else. That is good.

My Christmas spirit took a bit of a bashing from my job situation. A lot of people didn't want to go to the Christmas party. I wanted to stay with Boy. There were no decorations put up in the offices. The usual gift exchange didn't happen, and the usual hamper wasn't handed out. No explanations, no emails to wish anyone a good Christmas.

I was given a card and a present for the birth of my daughter which happened in January. I am pleased and stunned. Stunned that it took so long. My mind boggles at how their minds operate.

This year has seen a lot of changes. I have integrated myself in my mind on the Blue Coast. I belong here now. Home is a concept that is being reformulated time and time again. It is for sure no longer the house I grew up in, even though that is what comes to mind at the first hint of the word. That house now has strangers living in it.

I am aware of the concept of love this Christmas. What is it? How is it spread for many ? How do you express it and share it?

I am aware that on the other side of the world in New Zealand and Australia friends and relations are nearer to opening their pressies than we are. In our turn we will do it before friends in Mexico, California, Maine, and where ever it is you live.

I am aware that this time of year is a burden for many. A pressure. I know there are people out there lacking love, lacking esteem and that the greatest gift they might get is a glass of water, or even a smile, if they get anything at all.

I know that not far from here, someone might get a gift worth my yearly salary in monetary terms, and that very gift might be cast aside and never used.

I am aware there is a lot of love and care. A lot of concern for the planet, for our future as humans, for my own future. I know this, that whatever it represents for you, whatever the origins of the word, this comes close to a temporal mark in the year, a day or moment that we should acknowledge in the miracle of life.

There are enough of us positive enough, with enough love to go around to change completely the business and how the business is done on this planet.

This is Christmas, a time of hope and joy. Make it what you will but make it good. I will be here in 2010 with a smile on my face, hope in my heart, and looking forward, no matter what happens.