the sprint to Christmas

Here in South Korea, we're now done with national holidays until Christmas. November is dry and dead as far as holidays go. But as John McCrarey happily points out, in the Catholic Philippines, the "-ber" months started in September, and since December is the final "-ber" month, Christmas season also starts in September.

South Korea is more like America, though, with the Christmas season—and Christmas commercialism—starting up around late November. Will I have my usual Thanksgiving feast this year? Probably not. I imagine that, whatever I do, it's going to be pretty scaled down. Maybe there'll be a chicken or turkey pot pie, possibly with a regular crust. Otherwise, I don't have anything planned in terms of November celebrations.

For the rest of the Korean population, though, it's now the sprint to Christmas, with all of the rest of the holidays mostly out of the way. Koreans do ring in the new year, though, but I normally celebrate that by witnessing the local fireworks that spout off the Lotte World Tower. Ever since I moved from the sixth to the fourteenth floor of my building, I can no longer see the Tower out of my window, so I have to go to where the freight elevator and staircase are located to watch through the window. Not very exciting, but I usually get a minute-long video out of the experience. I normally also celebrate with some non-alcoholic bubbly bought from the Paris Baguette downstairs a day or so before, and I take a celebratory selfie that I then slap up on the blog when it's the first second of the new year. Not a very exciting life, but hey, I'm an introvert, so it's less about being lonely and more about being blissfully alone.

Because most people are assholes. And that's a perennial fact.

All the same, I have a few people I wouldn't mind spending New Year's with, but they're all either in a different country or already planning to do whatever they usually do.