White non-Christmas

NB: Young children in the UK reading this post may be jealous, but I don't suppose any are.

This morning, on my way to work, the skies did what they were supposed to do on 25 December, and snow tipped down from the heavens. There is now a nice thin layer of snow covering Kyiv. Isn't it lovely how it dampens all the sound, all the sharpness, it takes the edges off everything...

Of course, it's not really a white Christmas as I am at work and feel absolutely no compulsion to celebrate at the moment. In fact, I would prefer not to - without all the stuff like being at home with your family, eating too many mince pies, going down the Choke (if people did in the end) on Christmas Eve, watching appalling hour-long episodes of hit comedy shoes in an amusing foreign setting (I have severe doubts that Little Britain abroad will be anything other than painful), my mother asking my brother or me to act as 'postman' and deliver the presents, etc etc - without all that ritualistic stuff, and without any fellow Westerners to celebrate with, it really seems pointless and actually a little depressing to be full of the Christmas spirit...

So, not quite baa humbug, but not too much ho-ho-hoing either, not in Kyiv. Though a very merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all. And may 2007 be fantastic for us all.