Yuletide stress/bliss

STRESS: I like Christmas. I really do. But why do I (and so many others) wait until the last minute to take care of the shopping and ordering and planning? I'm currently wondering what to do about the gift that's on backorder (cancel it by calling the 1-800 number that doesn't work from Europe, try to order something else & hope it makes it on time or send my sister out to the stores to look for a different one??) and about the people whose gifts I haven't yet devoted much time to figuring out. This is actually driving me to distraction--my brain has been rather fuzzy and non-functional in my lessons lately. Plus there are my computer woes (the hard drive is dying) that have me thinking in terms of hard drive sizes and repair costs. Could I have prevented all this if I had just started buying gifts in November when the first wish lists came in? The answer is a very resounding yes. Why don't we learn from year to year?

BLISS: I had a lovely night out at a the Christmas market on Freyung in the First District on Sunday evening. I invited a random set of friends that didn't necessarily know each other and we had a great time. We stood out in the cold sipping from mugs of steaming punch or mulled wine and talked about all sorts of different things. It was fun to look around the group and realize how international we were--Austrian, German, Swiss, American, British, French. Afterward we saw a film called "Merry Christmas" (Joyeux Noel) by Chris Carion. This was an excellent film for our random group as it was in German, French and English with German subtitles. It's about the events that occured during December 1914, the first Christmas of World War 1. On the various fronts, the lower level commanders in the trenches decided to have a cease fire on December 24, which led to a continuation on the 25th and the 26th and so on. During the cease fire (as depicted in the film, which is based on actual events), the opposing sides celebrated together, sang together, played soccer and buried their dead alongside one another. It is an excellent film, so if you get the chance to see it, do.