Counting down till Xmas…
In 20 days Amit and I are flying to Croatia to spend Xmas with my family and like Amit was excited to share the Jewish holidays with me, I am really looking forward to sharing the Xmas holiday back home with him – the tree, the decorations, the atmosphere, the mountains of food and the heaps and heaps of various Xmas cookies…
Back when I worked in the “Mines of Agency World”, I used to be really, really, really fed up with Xmas by mid-November (due to chronic over-exposure to all the Xmas campaigns, leaflets, give-aways, etc, etc) and on Xmas Eve I would literally be running out of the office in a state of panic, usually late afternoon, while still compiling a gift shopping list in my head.
Moving to Ireland changed that – 2008 was the first year after a long time that I got to actually enjoy pre-Xmas time! 
I got to walk around Dublin with all the lights and decorations out there, enjoy the short, slow days at the office and the meals with friends (and my favorite mum’s home-made cookies which she DHL-ed to me just before Xmas Eve ).
This year marks the first time in my life that I’m not exposed to the corny Xmas songs on the radio and the Xmas decorations all over town and in stores and I admit I miss it a little bit… The closest I can get to something that looks like Xmas lights is passing by Bar Giora restaurant after dark (and, of course, ignoring the fact that these lights are there all year ).
So I’m looking forward to having the whole Xmas shabang and am hoping that the trip itself will be much more painless than my last year’s Odyssey through Europe, i.e. 48h of trying to get from Dublin to Zagreb across snow-covered France and Germany with my luggage (naturally, containing all the gifts) catching up with me full 2 days later (eeeeeeeeeeek!!!).
