Annual Christmas Routine

So today it was on - the long awaited Cousin's Christmas Bash - this time a little different as it was really at a cousin's place - not a sibling's hacienda. I missed last year, as did Echo, as she was studying in Japan and I being more than slightly selfish decided not to come back to North America but to go to Japan- have a nice visit with Number 3 daughter (Echo) - and then go on to (return to) Thailand to do some golfing with my good golfing bud, Bill - aka doctor bill - before back to work in Aceh. ANyway, the recounting of those events are to be topics of another post -assuming I can remember to do that - which I may not be able to based on memory issues.

Back to today...

Picture this -a 3-story condo (or as James corrected me - a townhouse) - a row house which seemed more or less ok - not on the end but close to it -so lots of climate cooling opportunities (made up for by the neighbours who heat their places to more than ambient temp. -Clearly in the interests of climate stasis we must all learn to live like without using energy to keep ourselves warm - anyway, I digress.

We all gather in the middle of this house - i.e. on the second floor where the action is -certainly where the refrigerator is and where the stove is - so we (all 20-odd of us- and some of we seem odd for sure) are able to get our designer beers, red vino collapso and purple potato pizza with baqlsamic vinagrette sauce, nanaimo bars, samosa (oops -I mean spanokapita - I never knew the Greeks and the Indians were related - except the DNA record might prove it- if we're lucky and there's no NHL game on, we might ewven be able to watch an authentic TV blurb on this -who knows - I certainly do not. Sorry, I digress again.

Back to the gathering- the old folks go through a ritualistic hugging ceremony -the cousins also hug one another and seem to enjoy being together again. Moi - I am happy to see this -but I am not so excited about being this far away from home, and having to drive the boat back to the son's house in the rain and in the dark - although I suspect this will be easier than if it were snowing as it was last week.

I think to myself - thank goodness this is only once a year or once every two years. Next year I are going to be away again -for sure. Planning is underway as I write - more on that next time or soon, whichever comes first or second..