Nearly Christmas

Just a couple of days to go and Christmas will be upon us. I enjoy this time of the year like most people, and I get a kick out of seeing my wife, Pat open her presents. I’m sure she feels the same when she sees me acting like a young kid as I open mine. But it’s more about what we give or receive, it’s about remembering the reason we celebrate our Lord’s birthday. It’s probably also the only time of the year when governments let their guard slip and they show a hint of Christian heart and allow the public to indulge their joy at the annual festivities without the politically correct brigade interfering. No doubt the ‘diminutive functionaries’ in our town halls would stop it all if they had their way. My wife and I have been to three carol services and know of several others that have been celebrated locally here in Spain. And to cap it all, the sun’s shining.
I ordered a couple of my paperbacks today (Roselli’s Gold) from Amazon. Well, from the Book Depository as a matter of fact. But I can’t understand their pricing policy. I paid less by ordering from the Book Depository through Amazon’s web page than I would have paid had I ordered direct from the BD. If I had ordered from Amazon, the books would have cost me 70% more for each copy to cover p&p. Doesn’t make sense: Amazon is willingly pricing itself out of the market this way, and the BD is competing against itself and allowing its profit margin to be cut by using Amazon as a selling place.
Like most of us I presume, we (me and Pat) are now at the point where we are totting up whether or not we have bought enough food and drink to see us through a weekend. There’s probably enough in the cupboard to last until the New Year and that’s without the amount of food our guests for Christmas will bring with them when they arrive on Saturday. And for good measure we are eating out on Saturday. So all that remains for me is to wish all my readers (?) a happy Christmas. Don’t eat too much. Make sure you have a copy of one of my books to read and I’ll be back here sometime next week.