Northern Gaijin 北外人: Christmas Shopping

Night in Prague from Metron on Vimeo.

Well it’s that time of year when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping and I spend my time trying to find a parking spot at the local malls after which I elbow my way through the throngs in the stores. I thought that I would show a video of Christmas Eve in Prague, the capital of the Česká republika to remind myself about alternative seasonal activities which do not revolve so much around consumerism such as we have in North America. No snow yet so it doesn`t feel like Christmas but I did manage to get the indoor decorations up as well as the outside ones. My outside reindeer with the electric lights aren`t doing so well which is not unexpected given that they were buried for two months in a snow drift last year. Christmas cards have been sent out and my oldest daughter who is living in Vancouver while studying at UBC arrived yesterday. Not like living in the country where I would go out and cut down a Christmas tree. We used to go to the wood lot with a farmer who brought his horses and wagon; pick out a forty foot tree, cut it down and then in half; attach the twenty foot length to the wagon and drag it back to the house; use a chainsaw to reduce the height until it fit in the ten foot ceiling of the 1892 home and chop the rest for firewood for the kitchen wood stove.