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

I have been celebrating xmas with my ex and the kids for the last many years. Our divorce did not change that. We have always been on friendly terms. (Okay just before and after we split up it was more like armed neutrality but let's not go there now.)
Three years ago my daughter could not participate. The commute from Singapore to Denmark was beyond her means. So we waited with the common festivities till she was back home again in January and I spent xmas and new years in Rome, Italy.
This year she is traveling through Canada, Mexico, Belize and is probably in Guatemala now, if she hasn't moved further South already. She will return via Colombia 1. February and we will roast the 8. February.
This gave me a lot of options for what to do over the holidays, so I talked with a handful of other singles about going somewhere warm for a week or two. Meanwhile two nice s were begging me to spend xmas with them and our common friend. Even if I turned down the offer again and again they kept pestering me about it again and again.
- Nope, I said. - Not going to happen. If I don't fly down South I will take the train to my old friends.
But the tickets down South turned out to be very expensive. Even last-minute-trips were double the prices we had in mind, so that option was out.
Then some brain-dead male made a phone call to the authorities and told them there was a bomb in Odense railway station which most Danish trains have to drive through, so the threat more or less paralyzed all Danish railways for hours.
It was then that I decided to take up the offer from the two s - on condition that they wouldn't mention it to our mutual friend.
Boy did he have when I suddenly arrived out of the blue
We had a very nice evening. Duck roast, pork roast, potatoes, red cabbage, gravy - and streams of
And I could walk home shortly before midnight - and sleep in my own bed

Merry xmas everybody

And to you, too

Some ways of making a short story long:

1. Build the world's longest one-story building.
2. Leave out the end, making the short story long for one.
3. Wear shorts to a Wagner opera and then describe the plot to friends afterwards.
4. Do what Pierce did. [ over the description of the and red cabbage gravy]

Merry Christmas, Peirce! Glad you had a good banquet among friends!

Thank you

And just as I was napping on the sofa listening to The Moody Blues my cousin phoned me from Philly. What a nice surprise!

And every minute now I should be on Skype with my daughter calling from Guatemala or whichever South American country she is in now

The simplest and most obvious ideas are often the best. We just need some persuading!

Merry Christmas everyone - however you celebrate it!