Friday Shuffle - Last Shuffle 'fore the Fat Man Arrives

Raise you're hand if you're all ready for the Christmas holiday to arrive! Yeah, my hand's not raised either. I still have one more present to buy.

• I hate like sin to buy gifts for crazy Tante Gabi and milquetoast Uncle Gerald. We're not close with them except for the times when we have their company thrust upon us and I happen to find it pointless to the point of meaningless to buy gifts for them. And I've noticed that the closer it becomes to the holidays, the less of a crap I give about what I present them. That's sad. Gift giving shouldn't be done out of a sense of obligation. I don't give them junk but I care so little about it that if they didn't like it or didn't use it or even regifted it, I wouldn't care because I feel like I only went through the motions of presenting a gift.
  
  
• Speaking of the word "gift", a couple Christmases ago my sister and her husband sent some marmalade for me to give to some friends of ours that my sister and BIL are just crazy about. It was some sort of orange/hot pepper marmalade concoction and on the label of the jar it said "A gift of Florida". Later after they had a chance to try the marmalade I asked how they liked it and the husband said "We liked it a lot. It's very spicy! I can see why they jokingly call it poison!". That's when it dawned on me that they misunderstood the meaning of the word "gift" on the label. Gift in German means poison.
  
  
• The misunderstanding of words that are common in both English and German but have vastly different meanings happens on occasion. I'd lived in Germany for about a year when it occurred to me to ask Burkhard if he thinks "Pizza Hut" means to him "Pizza Hat" and yes, it did. Hut in German means hat. And he thought the black roof on the logo was some sort of flat, black hat akin to what a gondolier wears. I laughed for ten minutes straight when he told me that.
  
  
• I always think the words "after shave" must freak out Germans or at least make them laugh. Go find a English to German translator and look up the word "after".
  
  
• We've been having some crazy weather here this week. It looks like it's cloudy every day but in reality it's not regular clouds but high fog that's so thick it blots out the sun. Today the fog was lower and since the temperature is below freezing the fog freezes and covers everything in a sort of frosty fuzz. Pretty, except it so freakin' damp that the cold soaks into your bones. My joints are so stiffened up from the damp I'm walking around like a 600 year old woman.
  
  
• The fog has also kept me from taking, for your enjoyment, pictures of the Christmas Market. But let's face it - it pretty much looks like last year's pictures.
  
  
• I'll show you my Christmas tree, though.

Today's musical selections come from my Christmas tune folder. Bixente, put on your Santa hat and shuffle.

1. Wonderful Dream (Holidays Are Coming) - Melanie Thornton
2. Merry Xmas Everybody - Slade
3. The Angels Cried - Alan Jackson & Alison Krauss
4. Weihnachten Bin Ich Zu Haus - Roy Black
   
5. O Holy Night - Il Divo
6. Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses
7. Christmas Eve - Blackmore's Night
8. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - Aaron Neville
9. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland
10. Audi Victoria - Die Prinzen

That's it for me until after Christmas. If you celebrate the holiday, I hope you have a blessed and safe Christmas filled with love and peace. If you don't, enjoy your time away from work and pray that on Christmas Day we can have a peaceful day around the world.