Forwarding Address
August 03, 2005

28 years-old
April 19, 2005

human...
April 17, 2005

Pancreatitis
April 14, 2005

Depressed
April 13, 2005

December 21, 2004 - 8:53 pm

Christmas

I love Christmas. I am not ashamed of it. I LOVE IT. I love the cold weather, I love the fact that it�s dark when you leave home in the morning and dark when you return home. I love lying on the floor with my feet on the radiator trying to heat some feeling back into my toes. I love trying to walk down a road caked in snow and ice whilst wearing high heels.

I love the fact that once a year everyone in offices all over the world subject themselves to the ritual humiliation of the office Christmas party , always socially awkward and cringingly embarrassing. I love that you walk into a restaurant and see them - men still in suits, women wearing more makeup than normal - and everyone, in their smart clothes�wearing paper hats. (slight diversion here - at my office Christmas lunch the joke in my cracker was - What�s the best way to catch a squirrel? Climb up a tree and look like a nut.)

I even love the fact that all the shops start putting up their decorations in October - Christmas couldn�t start early enough as far as I am concerned. At what other time of year could you pay fifty quid for a packet of seasonal cheesy nibbles? I love that on boxing day everything is suddenly a quarter of the price and Easter Eggs are on the shelves.

I love that the guy in the shop where I buy my diet coke every day wears a Santa hat and decorates the magazine racks with tinsel and baubles. I love that the same guy decorates his shop for Diwali and that all over London the sound of Indians celebrating the Festival of Light with fireworks mixes with the bangs and fizzes of Guy Fawkes night. I love that I can walk into Soho at the end of January and join in the celebrations for Chinese New Year. In March I love the fact that me and my urban family can go to O�Neil�s and get pissed in honour of St Patrick. In Trafalgar Square Vaisakhi is celebrated with music and festivals in April (as is the all important event of MY BIRTHDAY, where well wishers from all over the world wire me money�) In August it�s the Notting Hill carnival, I�ve only been once and I didn�t get shot�actually I had a fabulous time dancing in the street with complete strangers and eating goat curry. Then we�re back to where we started - Diwali...Halloween�Guy Fawkes and Christmas, not to mention Hogmanay.

And all this in one huge melting pot of a city.

I admire the people in my city who believe in and follow their families� cultures and traditions. I am jealous of my Sikh and Muslim friends who are proud of their heritage and I am disgusted by the lack of backbone in my country. I have Scottish roots (I was the first in my family to be born outside the borders of Scotland) and I feel lucky because at least I have something I can pass onto my children, I can tell the stories of their ancestors and pass on my own beliefs and rituals. I will teach them to be proud of their family�s history, I will teach them not to be ashamed. I will teach them to be open minded. I will teach them to join in all the celebrations they can - whatever the religion, if the origin and intention is good and peaceful then it is worth embracing. I will take them to see Santa Claus in department Stores, I will say Merry Christmas and not be scared of offending (I think it would more offensive to assume a person of another religion would be offended in the first place.)

I will take a leaf from America�s book (just one) and be proud of my country, my flag, my homeland and my heritage. And most of all I will always be proud of, and will always love, Christmas.

And there's a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o thine,
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne

(Translations available on request!)

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