Holiday cheer

Behold, our Christmas corner! Note the hauntingly beautiful air lent by the candles; they're part of the annual Christmas generosity of my mom. The presents are from her, too. (I haven't finished wrapping my present to Meltem yet – I'm still trying to wrap the big pink bow around the hood... aw, I use the same joke every year.) And if you look closely you can see the little white ornament she sent; it's got two little snowmen, labeled "Meltem" and "Barry." (Well, maybe you can't see it, but it's there.) So I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Mom for making our faraway Christmas that much nicer!

It's holiday season around these parts, too. Today is Kurban Bayramı, the Feast of the Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of the prophet Ibrahim (that's Abraham to you Old Testament aficionados) to sacrifice his own son (in their version it was Isma'il, i.e. Ishmael, not Isaac). The practice is to either sacrifice a sheep and give its meat as charity to the poor, or at least to pay someone else to do it. Now there's a fun holiday. At least I get four sorely needed days off because of it. Ah, but then I have to work on Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day! But then, I'll have our Christmas corner to keep my spirits up (repeated here in its fully illuminated form):