Have you ever seen the faces of the children, they get so excited...

The issue those who complain about people using the word Christmas have to face is that it is the official name of the public holiday, so that's what the day is officially called in this country. Whether the words have any deeper meaning for you or not is a whole other issue, but you can't go changing proper nouns just because you don't like them. To those who complain about Christmas -- like the tool in the beat-up story in yesterday's paper*, who, for all his bleating, just has a traditional Australian Christmas the week later -- what are you going to call it? "The Day Before Boxing Day"?

I'm not a Christian (I was one, though, so I know their mythology) but Christmas still has a meaning for me: it's the day (or 'time of year' because not everything has to happen on the day itself**) when families get together; it's the time you catch-up with your nieces and nephews if you haven't seen them for a while. Obviously, because of that, it's still sad for people who can't make it home.

*See, I didn't even mention my conspiracy theory that the whole story was just the Murdoch Press trying to invent a controversy, like Bill O'Reilly in the States. Bugger: I almost didn't even point out...

**I ordered a book for my brother on Amazon, but I was slack and only did it last Friday, even though I worked out months ago that this was what I'd get for him. Several times the order page reminded me that the shipping type I currently had selected would not get the present to me by December 24. I gather that in America, you get disowned if you don't have presents ready for Christmas morning. In the end, I went for the cheapest delivery, so my brother can expect to get his book sometime between 4 and 16 January: I'm an Australian.