I'll Merry your Christmas!

Christmas is almost upon me, a point that I sometimes forget up here. I already took care of all my gifts for my family and before I left. I decided to buy a gift for my girlfriend off eBay and got screwed out of a couple hundred dollars; yep i was hoodwinked by a shishter, duped by a fiend, taken in by a taken-inner. Didn't mention it along with my other woes these past weeks because it wasn't strictly Korea-related, and thats where the blog related hilarity lies. I've bought on eBay before without troubles, this here was an A1 scam.

Anyway the yuletide is almost upon me, and this is my first Christmas ever when I'm not in the country of the cold. They deal with Christmas a little different here, its not as commercial. Not for a lack of trying from the advertisers, more a lack of obsession by the consumers. Sure you see ads at the stores but it all comes across as a half-hearted labor day sale. You will be happy to hear however that the Koreans do pay allegiance to a white Santa (not sure what their Jesus looks like, but at least they're on the right track). The kids in my classes all seem to be looking forward to it a fair bit but even they will admit that it is only their second favorite holiday. The first is typically something called Children's Day that is happening in May I think. I don't know much about it, any attempts to interrogate the kids on it are met with language barriers and the expression "Moo-ah-la?" which I think is Korean for "What you talking about, Willis?". Somebody really should teach those kids some english. In any case I'll assume its a planned uprising of sorts and plan correctly.

Now with Christmas I only get one day off, so I don;t have a heck of a lot of plans. I think I get two off for New Years and might try to get out of town for that. Ken is coming into town in a couple of days and i really should keep my schedule clear in case I have to spend the weekend cradling him in my arms, feeding him kimchi and whispering: "just close your eyes and pretend its poutine".

Now I am not grinchin out on anyone but its actually kind of nice to have a break from Christmas. Now its one thing to be in Canada and not get wrapped up in the commercialism of it all but its another thing to be really separated from the whole holiday. I have no doubt I'll spend most of my life in Christmas dominated countries so this is more of just a nice little breather. I hope that everyone back home is having a stressfree Christmas, and will enjoy their time with friends and family.

Will I miss my family on Christmas? Most definitely, but none of those feelings will sink in until the day itself when I get incurably wistful and make some homemade eggnog out of milk and soju and sing Christmas carols.

The carols I do get a lot of here though. Nick and I discovered we had both taught our classes how to sing "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells..." (although I did not try to belabor the double entendre of Robin laying an egg) and the music they play at the gym is full of pop star covers of Jingle Bell Rock in Konglish. They are also really big on that old Wham! song 'Last Christmas', to the point where they will have a playlist of two different covers of the song playing two minutes apart. They seem to be singin by phonics only, which probably explains why they are so heartfelt. Tough to make that song deep when you actually know what the words mean.

And yes Schwindt, the title of this blog is a tribute to you.
Why don't you shut up for old time's sake?