Jesus Christ!

Jesus was born in summer, not in freakin' Decmber. The story of Jesus' birth speaks of the shepherds in the fields with their sheep. Now I am sure it didn't get quite as cold in Jerusalem as it does here in Alberta (-46 the other week!) But still, I wouldn't go out in this-> wearing nothing but a dead sheep.

They moved it to coincide with the Germanic/Pagan festival of Yule and/or the Roman winter solstice festival. Yule-Tide Greetings is a derivation of the Nordic term jultid which translates directly as Yule-time. Sure I actively look out for correlations between the two languages to justify the usefulness of me learning Swedish in the first place, but I thought this one was pretty spot on.

Now I'm going to go take a shower for talking about religious subject matter. Bleh.

Our first staff pond hockey game was awesome. I expected to be liken to Bambi on ice but I actually managed to stay on my feet most of the time (one feet-in-the-air stack was obligatory). I am now getting sucked into Canadian culture and loving hockey. I have borrowed myself a pair of skates and try to get down to the pond to practice my skills whenever I can; roping unsuspecting locals along to give me some tips. I am getting the hang of hockey stops (you'd hope so considering it's a tool I use in teaching skiing), switching, skating backwards, plough stops and even throwing in the occasional spin.

What I didn't enjoy was the temperature on our big day. We went out on the ice in the evening with the temperature sitting around a snot-frosting minus 35. I had to hold my big toe in front of the heater for a solid 5 minutes before I could feel it again after about 20 minutes on the ice. Ouch.

It's amazing how much more seriously Canadians take Christmas than we do. Christmas isn't just one or two days of family meals and a few presents... they set aside weeks of drinking and general festivities. I always wondered why they would labour those nasty parades every year in Perth and now I see it. They are trying to spread the Christmas love they have here- the time and money people put into this time of year is retarded.

Australians are a little more money-minded it would seem. The National Retailer's Association of Australia has announced that sales are way down from previous years and predicts that most consumers down under are holding off for the Boxing Day sales. "Screw Christmas," says Australia "let's wait a couple of days and get more stuff for less!" Damn right.

While I am family and friendless for Christmas I am looking forward to having a few friends come up and visit shortly afterwards so we can sort out some solid snowboarding, ice skating and get champagne-messy on New Years Eve. Yeah.

Oh and speaking of Jesus, tools and Australia; here's a picture of Russell Crowe. Jesus Christ, what a tool.