damn global warming. damn modernity.

Today I was talking to Natalie after poetry class ended and I realized... in two weeks I am going to be home. Home home home!

I was supposed to perhaps be going to Austria with my family at the end of the break but for a number of reasons I will be staying in Dublin with Abs and Giz when my parents and Rach leave in early January. I am quite content with this. As much as I do have the wanderlust there is still a big homebody in me that just wants to go out to my pubs and cook in my kitchen.

My childish love of Christmas wore off at twelve or thirteen, maybe. I dreaded My first Christmas in Ireland, except for wanting so badly to see Rachel. Christmas necessarily means nostalgia, I firmly believe, and the emptiness of starting over didn't allow for much nostalgia.

I enjoyed it, though. I was surprised that year to find I enjoyed my first Christmas holidays in Ireland. The next year I eagerly awaited it. And last year, the first year of my Diaspora (or the Diaspora on Diaspora) Christmas was defined purely by home. Christmas day seemed pointless because Christmas was when the fecking plane landed.

With that in mind, here are my top five Christmas songs, in no particular order. They are all good, in their own way.

1. Fairytale of New York, by the Pogues.

An Irish classic, it wants to be a part of your life, too.

2. Child in the Straw, by Leigh Nash.

Really beautiful lyrics. Yes, a song for crimbos but no, not a crimbo song.

3. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings by the Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan.

Easily downloadable (as all of these are. I don't see how one could not like this song, though.)

4. All I want for Christmas is you, by Mariah Carey.

Don't be a hater. It's a brilliant song. Just recognize it for what it is and move on.

5. Basically any version of "Sleigh Ride."

I have always wanted to ride in a sleigh, for real, with the horses and all the snow. I want to be going somewhere nice and be with someone nice. Damn global warming. Damn modernity.