What Christmas?

The past seven days have dealt me a Birthday, a Christmas and now a winter camp.  I won't lie, it has been a slightly surreal time largely due to my own psychology surrounding these so called 'big events' coupled with seeing how Korean's celebrate Christmas.
  In fact in many respects, Korea doesn't really 'celebrate' Christmas but rather acknowledges it, much the same way you would when you find a strange person sitting way too close to you on the bus.  As I have grown older the magic of Christmas has slowly worn off and is now something I see in young children's eyes, reminding me of a time when I lay in bed filled with the excitement of all that Christmas offered. 
  Whilst the more cynical amongst us tend to see Christmas as a commercial exercise, I do think that we act with more kindness and are more thoughtful, even if it is to line the pockets of large corporations.  In other words we either do the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons - I can't decide which.  So spending Christmas wandering around a small fishing village without the slightest hint of festivity, I actually wasn't too worried that I was missing out.  In fact, if variety is the spice of life, then perhaps asking a Korean man who had just got out of bed, to cook us three chickens by 5pm is just as much fun as rushing around over-populated supermarkets filled with stressed customers whose good will has long desserted them.
 

If you are wondering what became of the chickens, then they were roasted, stuffed (with rice of course) and delivered on time providing delicious eating as well as restoring my faith in humanity.