Is it over already?

Another Christmas comes and goes. This one different to the rest of course, because I'm in another country. Duh.

It was relatively uneventful I have to say, but here's some things that didn't happen:

- Having one present left underneath the tree with no name tag. "Who's this for? Who's it from?" And anyway it's always a tin of Roses for the whole family.

- Having a tree. Erm, yeah. If it's any consolation we piled the presents in the corner where the tree would have been.

- Usual Christmas TV. I don't think I saw anything on the Canadian stations that was remotely Christmassy. Then again, Christmassy in the UK these days means Ant & Dec so you can keep them.

And then there were some things that did happen:

- Fighting a battle all bloody afternoon with the smoke alarm. I was ready to tear it off the ceiling at one point. I've said it before though, my kitchen is not designed for cooking. Only heating.

- Jingle All The Way. It's still as good as it was all those years ago. How Arnold has never been nominated for an Oscar in his entire career I'll never know.

- Having good food. Well eventually. It turns out that some Canadian ovens set their temperature in Fahrenheit and not Celsius. So when the food has been in for an hour and still hasn't cooked it's because 220F is not hot enough to cook a beef joint. Once again Greg cooked up some excellent food and showed why he works in a kitchen and I sell games to teenagers.

It was also a time to think about those less fortunate than yourself. By that I primarily mean Rosie, Greg and Piers who were unlucky enough to share Christmas with the grumpiest bastard in Vancouver. I actually took a knife to a balloon at one point. I blame retail, it's beaten the festive season out of me over the course of five years. Then again anything that wakes me up before midday on my day off usually makes me apoplectic with rage.