Christmas Mania...

Salut, Doc... Messing with this current version of Internet Explorer and it falls into the category of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"...But looks like I have everything back to "normal"....so I may proceed... Now, I don't know how things are in the UK these days regarding the run up to the Christmas season...but HERE, everything is hyper-accelerated. In a way, our THANKSGIVING served the purpose of your Christmas...getting the family together, overeating, watching bad television,reforging family ties, or trying NOT to stir up some family drama... But NOW, it seems like a speed-eating fest that leads us RIGHT to BLACK FRIDAY...supposedly busiest shopping day of the year, heralding the beginning of the Christmas shopping feeding frenzy...You have breathless financial reports on television over that day's sales figures and how the economy is shoring up. Have we all lost our minds? Nah, I think the Golden Calf is pretty much crapping all over us...Now I could go ON about the true meaning of Christmas, Channukah, Kwanzaa, or whatever...but doesn't this seem a little bit NUTS? What people don't realize is that you don't HAVE to buy copious amount of presents...hell, you don't even have to buy presents at ALL...The choice is yours. It's sort of a popularity contest...Who got the most presents...were they "GOOD" enough? Appropriate enough? And most importantly...How much MONEY was sunk into them? You can present someone with a gift ANYTIME...Not just Christmas... (Personally, I would LOVE it if the nation went into this mass hypnotic state in which NOT ONE DAMNED thing was purchased on Black Friday...I won't be greedy and black out the whole month of December...Can you imagine? We'd probably be treated to dire red-alert warnings of another major Depression being imminent...) I won't even go into the stress of running around to fulfill all of these obligations... Needless to say, the only store I'll be going into for the holidays to enhance my OWN music/movie collection...whilst on a budget, of course... So how go the holiday-preps in Glesga and at Chez Lucas? All the best to you, Mike...Miss our blethers at the Uni...