Christmas is coming...but where are you going

Like everyone else at this specific time of year, I'm feeling that it's "almost Christmas, but its not quite here just yet" feeling.  It's December we're comfortably into double figures date wise, people aren't starting to slope off on their holiday trips if they're taking them.  Obviously for advertisers it's about getting word out and going absolutely crazy in terms of hyping whatever they're being paid to advertise, for them its most definitely Christmas. 

For most people Christmas is a time for returning to the family home, or having family to stay or visit, or family whatever.  As perfectly typified in "Planes Trains and Automobiles" (okay I know it was actually Thanksgiving, but it's sort of similar) For many the journey home to the family can  be the returning home for the first Christmas since leaving home, young people who've just moved out or have gone off to college.  Their life as new adults and the sort of renegotiation of terms with parents who are still used to the idea of charging into their youngsters bedrooms and telling them to get out of bed, that they are losing the day etc.  


Or new parents spending their first Christmas together as a family in their own home rather than going back to the home of those who are now "the grandparents".  It's complicated time of year, its strengthening ties that may have weakened a bit, or realising that a few people have drifted further away and you'll not be seeing them again.  Usually asking people what they did for Christmas illicit a pretty dull response. So I thought I'd try and find the most ambitious or self-aggrandising Christmas and I think I found it.    


So..... and no prizes for understatement or subtlety here, William the Conquer chose Christmas Day 1066 for his coronation as King of England.  Christ's birth, his coronation are you seeing the link?  Probably for the time an inspired bit of public relations, but then if you've got a load of knights to do your bidding you're probably less interested in what people actually think. So he probably had some family round, perhaps some light torturing of prisoners, but we can be sure they didn't have turkey that year due to the discovery of the Americas not being due for another few centuries.  

Anyway that's me for this week, so have a good weekend, Happy Christmas etc and I thought I'd leave you with this.....  Perhaps not too much of a "Baaa... humbug!" type quote, but it made me smile.... 


"Christmas.......Several weeks of Hell for Christ's sake!"