Oh please, even I celebrate Christmas. Mainly for the presents, of course.

The multiple boring (and sometimes awkward) family gatherings can be a bit tedious though.

There is celebrating the holiday and being expected to have bloody enthusiasm.

Haven't done this sort of thing in ten years, it is alien to me.

Oh please, even I celebrate Christmas. Mainly for the presents, of course.

Me too, but mostly for the choral music. Hey, Mr. Bond, you want my old choir buddies and I should come carol for you? We do a mean version of Angels We Have Heard On High. Sounds like you could use some wassail.

I may have mentioned this before, can't remember. You should politely decline any red items of clothing/santa hats, paste a winning smile on your face and shrug off any ignorant jokes about terrorists and whatnot. The wine and turkey will sedate them soon enough.

I hate choral music and X-mas carols even more.

In any case,my narcoticised state should get me off too much painful socialising with rubish relations. They're still getting used to the JV news and all that. The various regulations which should be well known to eerie seem to have them in a state of denial.

I understand, however, my MENA office is sending me a Libyan tarbouche. I should show up at Xmas events dressed Libyan style. Maybe with a nice selham.

You could do like my mom's insane boyfriend did when I was a kid...he spent the better part of a year in the 70s wandering around rural Sudan, so when he came back, he decorated the Christmas tree (which was hanging from the ceiling on a spring, so the cats wouldn't eat it), wearing some sort of long caftan thing he'd brought from Sudan, carrying a lighted menorah. And telling us stories about how he'd been fed a tasty maggot dip by the tribespeople, and loved every minute of it.

My potential in-laws (yikes) are nice, just a bit bland. They serve lamb instead of ham now, and never put bacon bits on the salad. The conversation is somewhat boring though, since it is acquaintance-type smalltalk, dog stories, television, etc. I get weird looks if I start talking about foreign policy, politics, etc.

There are worse things than bland, I suppose.

BTW a tarbouche would be a perfect mad uncle accessory.

i approve of a holiday tarbouche. any chance of aquiring some female body guards as well? would serve to stir up a wee bit of conversation anyway... especially when you set off all those radiation detectors littered across NYC.

Ooooh, I know just the thing to liven up your stay - some mistletoe!

I already have a tarbouche with me, as well as my two favourite qandarah, qamise and djellaba.

But another tarbouche can't hurt. I do like the Libyan style.

>>>Oh please, even I celebrate Christmas.

As I've mentioned elsewhere recently, my parents were atheist Trotskyists and even WE celebrated Christmas ;) ( thankfully without even any so much as a single rousing rendition of the Internationale ).

If you're tolerant of foul-mouthed, drunken, slovenly humour, you can always rent 'Bad Santa' to watch Christmas Eve/early Christmas morn - a near-perfect antidote for a season of treacly sentiment.

As noted in the other thread, a Lounsbury Christmas is possible:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1417523

Looks like the lecture was necessary and timely:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10588528/