Listen...

I'm like a kid on Christmas morning. I am so full of excitement that I can't sleep and I am reading everybody's Christmas blogs and there is good cheer all over the place. If that doesn't get you in the proper mood, I don't know what does. It's all rubbing off on me very much and I think I ought to be having Glühwein now and pieces of bitter dark chocolate.

The message of the season is clear. It's about joy and goodwill and sharing and togetherness and being cozy in each other's company. The whole crazy rat race has led up to this day, the unfolding of the Christmas spirit, and even I as an atheist can feel it. I am a sucker for sentiment.

I am living vicariously through everybody else's excitement and it is so catching. I love reading about everybody's preparations for the big day as I jump from one blog to the other. It makes me feel like I am right in the middle of it. Like I am some fairy godmother who is somehow responsible for making it all happen. What grandiose thoughts I have, but I do feel like that a little bit.

All over the place Father Christmas is being plied with good offerings of milk and cookies or wine and mince pies. I wonder who will get the best presents? If I were him, I would reward those with the wine and mince pies the most. There is nothing better to warm yourself on a cold Christmas night.

I thought I was going to be like Scrooge this Christmas, but I am not at all and have found the joy of it deep within my heart, even if I am celebrating it on my own. It's okay to do it this way and to be alone here with the animals, because the spirit of it is with me anyway and even though I am a pagan, or a doubtful atheist at heart, I understand the goodwill toward mankind and the longing for togetherness and the symbolic gestures of the rituals and I reaffirm the message of peace on earth, especially now.

I am glad that I am not surrounded by a host of cynical people who will even cast a sentence of malignment on the small grasp I still have on the season's indisputables. Who will wipe everything off the table and declare the whole thing as nonsense. I do wish to keep acknowledging some of the absolute downrights still. Such as goodwill to all men and peace on earth.

Being single allows me to make my own rules about how I celebrate the season, about what elements are important to me and how I think and feel about them. It's wonderful to have this feeling and to make the discoveries. I am no longer fitted in one straight jacket or another, either one at opposite ends of the spectrum. I don't have to please anyone but myself, nor listen to anyone's dissertation about what Christmas is all about and how it should and should not be celebrated. That's my freedom of choice.

I will festively dress today and have morning coffee with my sister. Her children are with their father until the weekend is over, but I think she has plans for the whole of that time. She has a large group of friends and acquaintances.

The Exfactor sent me a short email announcing that he was busy, but that he would come by for a while on Saturday afternoon. I replied why he thought that this might be convenient for me. Now I must make a plan for Saturday afternoon. I will not be taken for granted like that.

I am expecting an extra 100 Euros from Social Services and when I get it, I am going to pick out different glasses, because the ones I picked out were only 29 Euros, the cheapest they had, not including the lenses, and I have decided that I am not all that happy with them. I think they make me look too stern and that they are not flattering enough. I want to see if I can find something better for a bit more money. So, that is going to be my Christmas present to myself. I get a 25% discount through my health insurance and I have just found out that they are tax deductible. The reason I mention this, is that it would be nice if I had the money on Saturday and then I could go downtown in the afternoon.

Well now, I am not having a good goose roasting in it's own fat today, but I will eat what I usually eat. I doesn't matter, because I would hate to have to face a plate of food I couldn't eat. I think I will make a simple rice dish and than the Überhund and I can eat that together.

Have a really terrific Christmas everybody and blog about it, please. I want to know all about it.

Ciao...