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This post has been rated “R” for strong language, scenes of violence and brief nudity (okay, no nudity).

I have to say that this whole thing with the Christmas Tree being banned from the courtroom because it makes some people feel uncomfortable (Article) is a very sad turn of events. Initially I thought it was a joke, but then more and more news sourced reported it. Initially I let it roll off my back, but the more I think about, the more I can only see it as a gross misunderstanding of multiculturalism and immigration in general.

When people immigrate to places they bring their own beliefs and ideas. We as Canadians accept this. I would go so far as to say that we embrace this. However, when you immigrate to somewhere I believe that there is an unwritten acceptance of the rules and customs of your new country.

When you move to a new country bringing all of your beliefs and your culture with you, you are supposed to be enriching the destination culture with the presence of your own. If you are unhappy with the way the culture is where you are going, then don’t go there. Pick somewhere else.

There isn’t even a religous overtone to Christmas trees. It’s just a tradition that is celebrated in several places around the world. It is just something wintery and wonderful because it reminds you of the holiday season. I personally doubt that most Canadians even really consider Christmas to be a religous holiday.

When the Christmas tree was first being introduced even the Christians, who seem to be tied to the modern collective conciousness of the Christmas tree, were not in favour of it. They felt that it distracted from the work of God.

Utlimately I have to say that if a fucking Christmas tree makes you feel fucking uncomfortable then you have bigger fucking issues!

And did anyone even stop to think that the presence of the tree which might be making 1% of the people feel uncomfortable is making the other 99% happier and cheerier than normal?

GG Judge Cohen. GG.

So last night was pretty cool. Caulle was exactly who I expected her to be. After meeting Paschen in person, he seems a lot nicer than I had assumed. Seltzer was also pretty cool, though not at all what I expeced. We didn’t do too much after we met up, but it was still awesome to finally put “real” faces to the names and voices. I say real, because a lot of people post pictures of themselves that are 1-5+ years old; and they don’t neccessarily still look like that.

I bought what will most likely be Holly’s last Christmas present last night. On the way home today I’m going to pick up one of her other present’s, but it has already been paid for so it gets relegated to second last. I could still use some stocking stuffers as well, but I haven’t had much luck with those yet.

We finally decided how we are going to do our Christmas last night. After I get back from New Brunswick and we survive the big Near Year’s Eve bash, we’re going to take all of the presents we got each other and put them under our tree. Then the next Saturday will be celebrated like Christmas (so we get to Christmas’ this year ). We’ll open our presents, putter around, have a Christmas dinner, etc. The extra waiting will be tough, but the end result will be nice I think. Plus it will be really nice to see the Christmas tree with presents under it.

And as a last thought, being in a ginormous mall this close to Christmas is how I imagine Hell to be.

Well, I sure haven’t updated in a while. It hasn’t been because there isn’t anything to update, but rather that there is too much.

My friend Derek and his girlfriend moved out here last week. Everyone always said that he’d never leave HB or small town Nova Scotia, but I knew better. So since I moved out here I’ve had four friends follow, and the ex-HB head count is up to ten (I’m pretty sure that’s all of us… so many it’s hard to keep track). That count doesn’t include Jay either. We both stopped at Ubisoft on the way out of HB. I ended up in Vancouver and he ended up in Australia.

So what have I been up to? Christmas shopping for everyone has been the biggest time sink. I’ve never had a girlfriend at Christmas before, and so I’ve never gone through this type of shopping (which reminds me, I still need to get stocking stuffers). I think I’ve been doing an okay job at it, but I guess I won’t really know until after Christmas is over.

There has been a lot of brunching and drinking lately. I had to make the rounds to all of the weekly events (that I don’t always go too) to say my Merry Christmas’.

I normally have a brunch on Saturdays, a different brunch on Sundays, dinner on Sundays, and movie night on Mondays. Honestly, it’s just too exhausting. I both love and hate rigidly scheduled weekly events. It is nice to know that there is a group of friends doing something every X day at Y time. It stops being so much fun though when you start feeling obligated to go and there are other things that you want to do. Even if it were just one event a week scheduled it wouldn’t be so bad, but to have so many, it eats up your weekend and other time too.

Quite often Holly and I like to go away for the weekend, or go to the movies, or not eat the same thing over and over that you have to eat at one of these rigidly planned events. Essentially, we like to live a little. I mean, it’s awesome to see your friends so much, but it’s also nice to do new things.

I’m trying to convince everyone that we should do a once a month get together somewhere. We could invite everyone from all of the various events and everyone could meet everyone and hang out together. Plus, once a month is easier to schedule for than several times a week.

Completely unrelated to everything else, tonight a few of the World of Warcraft crew are going to get together. It will be interesting to meet Caulle, Paschen and Seltzer in person. I think maybe I’ll give them all a copy of the game I made at work. Maybe I’ll be able to convince them that we should head downtown after we meet up and have supper at Guu! (Guu is a Japanese pub around the corner from where I live)

I’m looking forward to geeking out with them and talking about all of the intricacies of World of Warcraft. There are a couple of people at work I can talk to about WoW, but most of them stopped playing long ago. I stopped too, but only temporarily. Soon there will be a return to WoW made and hopefully it will be a triumphant one.

So we put up the Christmas tree at Holly’s last weekend. We bought some of those new LED lights, a few ornaments and some silver bids. We’re pretty happy with the tree

It was nice to have a start to the Christmas Season like this. Holly baked cookies and made home made cocoa and we trimmed the tree. It was an all around good time.

Her cat Max didn’t quite know what to make of the tree. When we hauled it out of the box he got so stressed out that he threw up (he’s a nervous creature). Now it seems like he feels right at home with it though. There is some evidence of him trying to climbe it and he enjoys sleeping under it.

Picutres:

Tree in the dark:

Tree with the lights on:

Tree after you’ve had too much to drink: