I’d like to wish all of my female readers a very happy Nollaig na mBam – which translates into English as ‘Women’s Christmas.’ In Ireland, this is the day when the women folk would take down the decorations and after that, they weren’t meant to do a lick of work around the house for the rest of the day. In particular, no cooking! It is the day for the women who have done all the work of preparing and cooking for the holidays to relax and have a sherry or even a glass of the porter.

I just might take the idea on board this year. My tree is divested of tinsel and ornaments already, but only because it dropped needles like some ladies of poor morals drop their undergarments:

Is that not the most pathetic looking tree ever? We were warned that this would happen. We had a very warm November so our native trees didn’t ‘set’ their needles for the winter as they normally would. But daaaaamn, this is horrible. I usually take a few weeks to cut up and burn our tree for firewood, and I’m having trouble figuring out how to do so without making a mess day after day after day. As iDJ said, we should have decorated that ginormous Umbrella plant instead.

So that’s one reason why I might celebrate women’s Christmas. Another is that I should, by all Irish reasoning, celebrate my first week of working by going out to the pub.

Another is that my Canadian friend is back in town after being away (close, but not close enough to drink & walk home) over the holidays. We should go have a girly drink together, no boys allowed.

The only thing holding me back is (besides being broke) that I have a cold… I’m pretty damn tired. But I sorta feel like a girly night out…

Gak, ‘girly’ is such a misnomer when it is women like us! But I don’t mind for some reason when it is me saying it.