Merry Christmas!!!

Well, Christmas has arrived to our part of the world (in the U.S. right now, Santa is probably just beginning to make his rounds while certainly all of you are dreaming of dancing sugar plums or something like that). The Christmas decorations appeared suddenly last week in the tiny shops that line our street, it took me a while to figure out what they were as it is not uncommon for decorations to materialize instantly to celebrate any number of occasions here. Eric and I were at a little second-floor restaurant near our house that we frequent for dinner and I was looking out the busy street below and it hit me, "Oh, those are supposed to be Christmas decorations!" It helps to put me in the Christmas spirit to see those decorations as the spirit is otherwise pretty hard to capture as there are no other similarities to Christmas at home. Oh, except one, and in my opinion one of the crappiest holiday traditions, the dreaded fruitcake. How is it possible to make a cake that weighs more than the oven that it was baked in? Anyway, fruit cake is about the only holiday treat that is available, and I am not that hard up, yet. Of all of the tasty holiday cookies and candy that there is out there, India had to adopt the stupid fruitcake. Damn!



Christmas is a national holiday in India, meaning many people get the day off of work. In my lab at the NCBS nearly everyone (excluding myself and one other fellow) has taken a vacation to be with family and friends over the Christmas holiday. The irony is not lost on me that I happen to be the ONLY person in the lab who was raised Christian (notice the common root word in the religion and the holiday, that is not coincidence) and yet I am the ONLY person here in lab today. I am going to remember this during Diwali!!! But not to worry, I plan to leave early and celebrate in the traditional American way; Eric and I are going to stuff ourselves so full of food that we can barley move! Sadly there will be no turkey, no ham, no beef brisket, no mashed potatoes and gravy, no stuffing, no pie or candy, but there will certainly be Tandoori chicken and lots of other delicious Indian dishes!



We are not the only Christians around (though there aren't many) and are not the only ones celebrating more than just a day off. Our downstairs neighbors (and landlords I guess) are Christian and have decorated their house as well as a little tropical evergreen (I have posted a photo) and also were kind enough to give us.... a fruitcake. We will forgive them, eventually.



Well, Merry Christmas!