Holiday memories. Holiday ennui too. I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling the latter. I'd guess that many of you are feeling similar feelings to me right now. Certainly, the fanciful, warm and fuzzy TV Christmas is far from my own experience. My family is 6,000 miles away, and my best friend will celebrate Christmas (although will probably wish he was elsewhere) with his own family. Don't think that I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm just acknowledging that there are many reasons why its natural for me to feel a sense of sadness at this time of year. I essentially don't have a family around me - whether it be a family of close friends, a lover, or my own birth family.

The odd thing is, however, that when I think back to the family Christmas' of my childhood, I remember everyone falling asleep in front of the television, after the Queen's speech, and I remember arguments at the dinner table. For the most part.

I just got a letter from my Dad. He remains, even at the age of 75, an excellent letter writer. He was reminding me of one Christmas when we got snow, and the whole family, including my mother, we all went into our garden and had a snowball fight. It sounds idyllic - but I can't remember it. I do remember one Christmas very clearly though. As usual, my brother Neil and I had strained our ears after we'd gone to bed on Christmas Eve, listening to my Dad setup our presents in the living room. We'd always done things differently from most other families. I guess my Dad hated wrapping presents, so he'd keep them locked up in his bedroom until Christmas Eve, and then, after we'd gone to bed, move them under the Christmas tree in the living room.

This Christmas, my Dad had gone all out to give us a memorable time. The first thing I remember noticing as we crept into the living room on that chilly morning, was an enormous battle ship, about four feet long. It had little motors on its bottom so that it could move along the floor in a rocking motion as if it were at sea, and the guns fired real rubber pellets. And that wasn't all - there was a three-foot sack of toys for each of us. The first things we unpacked from this delicious sack were cowboy outfits. We looked so cute in our matching outfits!

Neil on the left, me on the right - an early Christmas

The most idyllic Christmas I remember from my adult years was over ten years ago now. Pinning down my age on that Christmas was rather a shock to me - it seems like only a few years ago. Shaun and I had been together about eight months and we were still in the Honeymoon stage of our long-distance relationship - enjoying the hell out of each other. My roommate was gone for Christmas, so Shaun and I had the place to ourselves, and we did all the trimmings - a big tree (although looking at the photo below, it looks suspiciously like another fake tree!), a warm fire, a full Christmas dinner, and Christmas Pudding that we'd bought in Harrods when we'd been in London only a couple of weeks earlier. I spent all afternoon cooking - me! And it gave me such pleasure - because I was doing it for a man I loved.

22 years old - Christmas Day - taken by Shaun

It's funny. When I sat down to write this journal entry, I didn't intend to write about earlier Christmas experiences. But the memories started coming, and then I went to find the photos. And now, despite my earlier melancholy, I have a smile on my face. Christmas is often a time of the year that seems fonder in your memories.

One marked difference between my home-town Christmas and here in San Francisco is the weather. For the past four or five days, we've had an unusual warm spell. In San Francisco, any daytime warmth rarely lingers until the evening. But recently, there's been a Spring-like magic to the air that has carried through to the evenings. You can sense the pleasure it gives people - and feel it in your own legs as you walk slowly home enjoying the softness of the air. This afternoon, while working at home, it was a guilty and sensuous pleasure to take some time off and sit on my fire-escape and feel the warm sun on my shoulders.

Enjoying the unusually warm weather

The reason I was home this afternoon in the first place was that for both today and yesterday, our computer network was down at work. So I had to work from home. Quite a hardship :)