I know it's really really sad, but i've got to honestly say that I have missed my computer during all this time that I've been working. I can honestly say that I haven't touched my computer in almost a whole week.
The office closed down yesterday afternoon for the Christmas/New Year break, and will start up again early in the first week of 2005 (I think on the 4th). For the past 3 weeks I haven't been getting any work at the supermarket, which is good now that I've started full-time work at the office, but I wasn't surprised to see that over the next week I have two shifts because a lot of people will be going away on holidays.
Tomorrow is of course Christmas. In the past half-century or so it has become increasingly common to represent it as a shorthand 'Xmas', which totally baffles me. Other than the fact of this totally removing the most important part of Christmas, namely Christ, how is it that the X in Xmas is pronounced 'Christ' with no emphasis on pronouncing the 'i'. I could understand if it was 'Crossmas', because the X could be a cross. Anyway, i'm babbling...
i don't know where 'xmas' came about. i suppose 'tmas' wasn't liked. i suspect, however, that it came from the greek lettering (St Andrew was crucified on an x-shaped cross for that reason) seems probable.
of course, it's all avoided when you refer to it as 'Nativity' (and, i dunno, 'shopmas').
a/s