HERRING AND MILK TEA

It strikes me that many people, younger ones especially, cannot wait for the holiday season to end, so that they can get back to the regular hurley burley of slaving at their salt mines without the danger of aunt Gertrude or uncle Roger insisting on hugging them at the family celebration. "Come here you little rascal and give auntie a kiss. My how big you've grown!" Whereupon, for the umptieth year in a row, they resignedly inform the old thing that they've already graduated high school and are the CEO of their own footwear company, and have been since the Bush presidency.

Grow some brain cells, you old bat! Uncle Roger, of course, is the elderly gay relative, who insists on kissing the female cousins, so that he can maintain the pretense of being normal. He doesn't want to shock anyone with his homosexuality. Kiss kiss.

Actually, we've known for years.

See, there was that time that he and uncle Stephen, who isn't actually a blood relative at all, were ... that one year ...

And that, boys and girls, is why you should go slow on the egg nog.
Often, there is too much nog, not enough egg and cream.
Someone doctored the supermarket carton.

Seeing as my nearest kin on my mothers' side are down in Santa Barbara, and my father's relatives live in Calgary and Princeton, I do not have to worry about holiday get-togethers, and need not watch my behaviour as I celebrate by myself. Instead, on Christmas day, I shall wonder which places in Chinatown are open so that I can have some milk tea and a snack, because with my apartment mate also off work, I shall not be able to ensconce myself in front of the computer with a pipeful, and act like a rotten vegetable while reading about other people's drunken behaviour and weird conspiracy theories.

If I had stayed in the Netherlands instead of returning to California, I would be wondering about herring instead of milk tea. Nothing says Christmas better in Holland than stepping out for some herring at one of the stands in central Amsterdam. None of which, sadly, are open that day. Because the Dutch are a religious AND indolent lot. It's that mediterranean side to their personality -- that's why they spend six to eight weeks every summer at the Costa Del Sol or in Morocco rubbing themselves with olive oil and acting like uncle Roger or aunt Gertrude -- and everything closes the heck down on Christmas.

I'll probably have fried noodles or something.
While thinking fondly about herring.
Which we don't have here.



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