I've just had a bath. Baths aren't for everyone; many people prefer showers. I, too, enjoy a shower, nice and hot, but tonight there was nothing for it but a bath. For a change, the cats didn't bother me so I was left with uninterrupted reading time. I prefer to read mindless or leisure books in the tub, for two reasons. Firstly, I take bathtime as me time and, secondly, I would really hate to drop an expensive historical or art history book in the water. I did that when I first moved out here. Call it over eagerness, or something, but my "Concise History of the Crusades" has never looked the same. My current bathtub reading is "Eragon", which I scavenged from the Arts Centre lost and found after it had sat unclaimed for at least five months. It's that fantasy book that was recently turned into a not-very-good fantasy movie (or at least, so I've heard). It was written by a very literate, articulate teenager, and all the vocuabulary in the world isn't going to change his age and breadth of world knowledge. It is, without a doubt, a very basic story. Sort of like "Star Wars", only with swords, word magic and dragons instead of light sabres, the Force, and X-Wings. Like I said, mindless reading for the tub.

Anyway, I thought I'd actually stun you by going back and rehashing some of my Christmas holiday. I think I'll offer some highlights, rather than a blow by blow acount. I'll start with the Bioware Corp Christmas party, which I attended in Edmonton. My friend Brian works there and I was his date. Let me tell you, I have never attended a work party like this before in my life. Three or four open bars, including a martini/cocktail bar, dinner (which I missed due to my plane landing late), a stand-up comedian, live dj spinning a decent mix, enormous dance floor, Guitar Hero on the big screen (awesome game, that), a midnight mini-buffet, dessert tables and did I mention the open bars? Oh ya, and everyone got a taxi chit to get home. I made friends with the girlfriend of Brian's friend Stan. Her name is for the moment escaping me, but it will come to me eventually. I blame the steam from the bath. Anyway, she's tall, gorgeous, and rollickingly funny. And she's coming to Whitehorse with her choir in May ! Woo !

Christmas with Mom was beautiful. It always is. We had it real easy this year, which was nice, because I was kind of pooped when I arrived home on Christmas Eve morning. She was waiting with coffee brewed. That was possibly one of the nicest things I've experienced in a long time. We talked for a bit, then we both went to bed. It only took Chester an hour to decide that having me home was a good thing, too. He's a great cat. Then there was tree decorating, present wrapping, a quiet dinner just the two of us, and then Church. Christmas day was equally subdued, but in a nice way. I was just so happy to be home. I didn't even mind the lack of snow. In fact, I was rather relishing the unseasonably balmy weather.

Christmas is my favourite holiday, without a doubt, and quite possibly the single most persuasive argument against my ever having a bat mitzvah. Sure, it's supposed to be about the birth of Joshua, I mean Jesus, but since it's pretty clear he wasn't actually born at Christmas, and the whole shebang is essentially a conglomeration of all the best bits of several Pagan traditions, I'm okay being a mostly-Jew celebrating Christmas. Though maybe I'll start calling it Yule. All that aside, I love Christmas. Some of my happiest memories, even when the holiday could have been ruined by other awful things (a father in lock-up, a mother straight out of killer surgery, etc.), I only look at it as the best time of the year. I might not belive in Santa, and I held on to that belief for years, but I do believe in magic, particularly that created from love and closeness. Thanks for that, Mom, you're the best.

Okay, it's 12:30am, so I guess I'll leave off for now. But since I can't get enough talking about Gareth, I will most likely be back with more content.