I guess it could not be avoided. The year approaches its end. December stands right in front of our doors, and with it comes --year after year -- Christmas. Oh dear, the list of Christmas cards to be sent to family and friends seems endless. The deadline for sending them out with special Christmas stamps – the national mail service insists on issuing new ones annually – creeps nearer, and you still haven’t managed to figure out what to write to all those aunties and loved ones all over the world. On top of that, some insane person a long time ago invented the custom of exchanging gifts on Christmas. What an idea!

Maybe back then there was not such a mass of people with humongous gift-filled plastic bags stampeding through the city, killing what- or whoever gets in their way. A lot of money is exchanged for well-meant gifts that will later be re-exchanged for money after New Year. You almost lose your head inventing a brilliant gift for your sweetheart, your spouse, your children, your mother, uncle Fester and two hundred other people you feel obliged to present with something useless. After you have spent a ridiculous amount of money, lost your nerves packing the junk into fancy Christmas wrapping paper and broken your legs hauling a huge sack with the Christmas cards to the mail box, you finally come to the climax of the Christmas preparations: Christmas dinner. Turkey? Salmon? Ham? And for the vegetarians and vegans? Should they be invited at all? You dash to the overcrowded shops, fight for the last bird big enough to feed all the guests, run over a nice old lady collecting money for the poor, and find out at home that you forgot half of the things on your shopping list. The dinner is a disaster. The bird is black outside and raw inside, the vegetables more than well-done, the dessert looking like somebody has eaten it already, and after one hour you run out of alcohol – mainly because you needed so much of it yourself. The next day presents you with a headache you cannot ignore, large amounts of rubbish, a heap of terrible things called Christmas gifts and one single wish – let it be different next year! Sipping the last bottle of wine, you know perfectly well it won’t be any different …   

Merry Christmas!! … again.