h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

[Mog] It'd be easy to get lost in there, y'know ... oh well. IIEM, more of the same.

IIEM, a blue java, please.

*turns on the radio to keep informed about Saddam*

I never thought they'd catch him...

[Mog] They caught him? Well, I never.

GWB must be happy.
Oh well, we'll see what happens next.

Miracles do happen at Christmas...
*Puts v/_\3 on*

In RL I've just returned from a German market in Leeds, UK.

<BB<

I'd like to have a personal miracle.

May I have a cup of real tea, BB?

[Mog] At the RPGClassics message board, Saddam was described as "one of the greatest threats to world peace, next to Bush himself" in the thread on that subject ...

*Hands Hati a *
One question which I always like to ask is this: how does the celebrating of Christmas where you are differ from the American-style commercialised festival which now seems to dominate it all?


<BB<

I'm afraid it gets more and more American here, too.
20 years ago it was not allowed to celebrate Christmas here and traditionally it was all going on at home, very quietly. This part is still the same. Some people go to church, lots of them go to cemetary, everybody eats a lot. s are unpacked at Christmas Eve.
I'll go to my mom's place with my kids. My brother with his family will visit me on 25th.
We don't have snow this year, so people seem to be a little disappointed and that keeps things a bit slower on the commercial field. But still the s are piling up in the hidden storages.
Oh, and the s, they have been bringing sweet stuff into the shoes and slippers placed on the windowsill.

The highlight of my week (other than seeing Meatloaf in concert) was going to the German Market in Leeds. It was wonderful to see much more interesting and alternative Christmas decorations. Here in the UK it has become very American with Christmas fashion being dominated by evermore ghastly coloured baubles for the tree. I don't have anything against baubles as such, but at the end of the day, they're just balls - once you've seen one sphere, you've seen them all. And although traditional English decorations were once a lot more interesting and crafted than they are now - some of my favourites I've had since the 1980s - nowadays it's all plastic cheap tack.
So I was very pleased to go to the German market and get some wooden decorations, nutcracker men, rocking horses etc. - things which look traditional rather than the ever-bigger baubles that seems the only thing you can get here.

One thing that I still haven't been able to find is any form of Christmas Cake decorations. When I was growing up it was the Christmas cake that was the centre of the Christmas decorations - with a large homemade cake with white royal icing on top, all whipped up to look like snow. And on top of the icing were little wooden houses and small figures with trees and a Father Christmas on a sleigh. The cake then looked like a wonderful miniature village at Christmas and was quite beautiful. But does anywhere sell small cake decorations like that now?

It's even getting impossible to find a good nativity set to remind you that there was once a Christ in Christmas - it's all tree decorations now - and the only tree decorations sold are baubles.

<BB<

Yes, I agree Bluebottle *sigh* it's just too commercialized now! -IIEM, an egg nog latte please...oh yes & sprinkle on a bit of cinnamon & nutmeg for me!- I too have carefully kept some of my decorations from the 80's, even a few from earlier. So I try my best to keep Christmas fairly traditional...oh & I managed to pick up a nice little ceramic Nativity set a few years ago. But it seems every year the 'traditional' aspects are getting swept further & further aside.

Okay, we've got the snow now. And I don't know anybody who has a Nativity set at home. People aren't religious over here. And the traditional religion is too well remembered, too. That is something a bit pagan-like or something. Still, almost noone celebrates winter solstice either. Sometimes I think that people here are used to do what they are told to do and it doesn't really matter if it is told by government or TV commercials. A fading nation from this point of view.

[Mog] Yep, plenty of snow! In fact, Monday was our first Snow Day at school!

Snow? You lucky people - I haven't seen it snow properly in my life and there has only been one white Christmas in the UK in the last 50 years...
Oh well, I'd better put the v/_\3 on for you cold people.

<BB< - Who owns a nativity set

Yes, please, BB!

*hands over an empty *

*Hands a fresh over*

<BB<

*sips *

I hung around the shops today (w*rkwise) and I didn't spot any nativity set anywhere.

I admit they are very hard to find - you have to be in the right place at the right time. (Doesn't mention having three)

<BB<

*rolls eyes*

I got , I just have to bring it home on sunday.
(one needs to use the advantages the job gives )