Celebrating my daughter's second Christmas!

Hi guys. Just thought, since when the actual holiday happens, I'll be busy, I'd wish you all a Merry Christmas. I only started celebrating this holiday recently with my wife and her family, but its swiftly one I'm starting to cherish.

Once you get past the rampant commercialism that follows in its wake, it really does bring out some good feelings and will towards to everyone, which I freely and happily share with all of you. Music's good, and there are a lot of traditions that different human cultures associate with it.

Thankfully, we'll be home for christmas. The pirate situation on the Thessia's been wrapped up, and we're being rotated out for another crew of volunteers now that the situation is manageable. I'll be happy to celebrate the holiday on sandy beach in the mediterranean, and not a chilly Thessian mountain top. The freezing weather just bites at my knees like nothing else.

Anyway, for the sake of discussion, I'd like to ask what you guys think, if anything, about Christmas? Is it just that one silly holiday humans get all excited over, or do you actually partake in it yourself?

It's good to hear that you're up and about, Vohk.

I'm told it mainly involves drinking and meeting up with relatives you haven't seen all year.

...a rather appropriate time for my younger daughter to visit, then.

I celebrate Christmas. When I was a kid we'd go to mass and then to my grandmother's for Christmas lunch. By the end of those lunches you could practically roll me and my siblings home-so much ham and chicken. It was pretty awesome. Once I enlisted, I was away for years at a time so I missed out on all that, but my grandma would send me stuff.

She was worried I was going to starve or something.

Good to see you're up, Vohk, and have fun with your kid! This year will be my daughter's first Christmas, so I'm looking forward to it.

Hope you and have your family have a happy Christmas, Mr. Knox.

As for my plans...well, with the holiday season upon us, I am finally getting some much needed time off from my instructor duties, my brother is going home on shore leave, and my sister is heading back from her traveling. Along with several of Callius' family.

For what this means...I will let you know soon. ;)

It's a stupid few weeks where I can't get anywhere without humans crowding out the aisles and the same ten songs on half the stations. All this in veneration for some fat guy who stalks kids.

Only got worse when the Citadel relocated, too. Now we've got humans coming in by the shuttle making the spirits only know how expensive trip up to do some 'fresh' holiday shopping.

Oh spirits, the shopping. Do you know how much Sapient Slaughter charges were filed for these past few weeks? Apparently there's this one day where all the humans line up at stores and try to beat up and stampede each other to death over low priced items? Spirits, these people. Everyone at the office is working overtime just to file all these documents with the increased crime rate.

What wrong Ms. Grumpy face? Can't get any cheer out of another species holiday? Maybe you just need some more traditional christmas songs!

At least this Christmas will be better than the one last year, eh Vohkaidin?

Sigh. Its actually about veneration and celebration of the birth of the messiah, and the "fat" guy is relatively recent add on for the sake of the children, ad since its been present for more than three hundred years, its going to stick. "Stalking" just makes it sound unnecesarily creepy.

As for the whole shopping craze, I would've thought that would cool down a bit, like it was last year. I guess the return to normalcy brought good and bad.

And Prayer, you should be ashamed. If you're going to bombard people with Christmas music, don't choose kitschy stuff. Go big or you're just reinforcing annoying stereotypes.

Actually the core of it is the celebration of the winter solstice (hence the decorated trees), but some religions put a coat of paint over it.

You guys should look up another christmas figure, Saint Nicholas. He was some kind of holy mad scientist who sewed up murdered children and infused them with unnatural second life. It's a fun story, and they made deliciously creepy songs about it.

Meaning no intrusion, this one would be thankful if the other could answer a question, as it humbly requests further insight on one aspect of the other's experience. This one understands "ham" to be the flesh of the animal, "pig", a food forbidden to several ideological and religious creeds that are closely related to, yet nonetheless remain distinct from, the tradition that observes the Christmas. Indeed, its understanding is that the tradition in question branched off from one such faith with the arrival of the Enkindler-equivalent whose manifestation in human form the Christmas now celebrates. Given that the precise degree to which a people draw distinction between spiritual perspectives (as ever the first step towards recombination into new and illuminating discourse!) is of interest to this one, may this one inquire as to whether the other's consumption of pig flesh is symbolic of the ideological divide? Or is it instead simply the case that the other enjoys consumption of pig flesh and the choice is not significant to spiritual identity?

As ever, this one is thankful for any information offered, and asks pardon if the matter is a sensitive one!

I celebrate non-religious winter-based holidays.

Gift giving and food is expected.

I actually couldn't give less of a shit over what your holiday is actually about. What I do care about is the fact that all of a sudden my trips to the supermarket are becoming odysseys. There's a line of humans in literally every check-out lane and shopping kiosk, a crowd of humans wedged in every aisle, and a bunch of human brats screeching over what their parents are buying. And every moment in between is spent listening to the crappy music they pull for the season.

It's the worst few weeks of the year, and I fucking mean it.

I have my solution to deal with the stresses of Yuletide revelry: Eggnog, eggnog, and more eggnog.

Steel, I can point you to a couple dextro recipes to drown out the carolers.

Don't forget the thieves. These huge crowds are the things pickpockets live for.

I'm really sorry to hear that. If it really is such an inconvenience for you though, why not shop at dextro exclusive markets? After all, I'm not sure why you're dealing with such overcrowding even aisles for dextro products, except perhaps to buy gifts for turian and the occassional quarian friend. Regardless, there are stores on the station that aren't selling levo products, so when you're looking for food, at the very least, you shouldn't be having such an extensive problem.

If it helps, this is also a time of year here, this is statistically proven, a large chunk of humanity is feeling generous to everyone else. Donations and volunteer efforts grow exponentially, doing a lot of good. You still have to deal with a bunch of excited humans, and our music (which really can't be that pervasive. We're one species out of four council races, its not like we hijack the radio stations and force you to listen to our shit) but some genuine good, phyisical and metaphorical, is felt and encouraged by the tradition.

Also, to the hanar who asked the question about ham, there are some religons on Earth that would view the eating of pork as "unclean" or not kosher, but Christianity isn't typically one of them. Short answer: Our God said it was OK. slightly longer answer: Our sin in eating "unclean" foods is forgiven, since we were forgiven and saved by Him.

Look up Kosher and its tradtional meaning for a better defined answer.

Muck said it pretty succinctly. Perhaps it is part of the ideological divide between Christianity and other Abrahamic religions, but as Much said it's basically because our religion says it's okay. A lot of the 'old laws' from the Old Testament (the document that prohibits eating pigs) are no longer followed by Christians.

Which is awesome because I fucking love bacon.

Many thanks! This one appreciates greatly the willingness of the other to clarify the matter.

If this one may be so bold as to ask another question: is the (obviously metaphorical) reference to mating, made as part of the other's declaration of its love for pig flesh, a reference to The Fuckwit, apparently another interpretation of the ultimate Enkindler, of which this one has heard yet is unable to find much in the way of reference?

What, too fucking lazy to change the radio station?