I'm dreaming of an inclusive, multi-cultural, pluralistic holiday season

Those who know me are very aware of how I feel about our 21st-Century version of Christmas, complete with its crass commercialism, incessant advertising, screaming children, completely-lacking-in-imagination media saturation, tinny-music-blaring-out-of-speakers-in-every-freaking-shop 'carols', and general mad rush to buy stuff that causes shopping centres to become a complete nightmare for at least two months of every year. In short, I believe that it is sent to us directly from the devil himself, yes indeed. So it may come as a surprise to these people to hear that this afternoon I did most of my Christmas shopping.

This is entirely the fault of The Girl, who is getting quite excited about her first proper Christmas (what with being Jewish, and all). She decided that we would make a list, order a huge number of books-and-things from Amazon, and then have a leisurely wander down the high street to see if we could find a few more goodies. And so, I am now the proud owner of many gifts. In November. It's a bit odd.

The weather was utterly beautiful today. I love cold, bright, autumnal days. More of those, please.

It could all almost make me happy that it's nearly December 25th.

But not quite.