Friendsmas. Day 7

Little do we all know it, but we have engaged in a tradition that is little recognized yet prolific.  It's passed from friend to friend, year to year, and it rises and falls like the tide.  FRIENDSMAS.  This probably started for you as it started for me.  You are a fresh faced twenty something, and you make your first true friends.  You have a little bit of money, and want to spread what little wealth you have to these people that you chose and have chosen you to be a second family.  Friendsmas' date irrationally varies from year to year.  It's tucked messily between work, church, family and the grueling hunt for presents.  Sometimes you luck out, and Friendsmas occurs on the 26th, and you can pick up gifts on the cheap.  Whenever it happens, you actually look forward to leaving your home and catching up with buddies that have seen you at your worst and at your best (sometimes simultaneously!).  In spite of or maybe because of all they have seen and all they know of you, they still want to see you at Christmas time.   The folks who can say one word and crack you up.  The friends who bought you a beer when you just didn't have "it."  The group that picked you up and held you up when you couldn't by yourself.  
It's been awhile since I've had a Friendsmas, and I feel one coming on!  Watch out friends I'm coming for you!

... and also.  I've been fascinated by the idea of a warm Christmas lately.  I guess I have a recent awareness that half the world (below the equator) have Christmas in summer.  Neat.  As hard as I try, I can't associate Christmas with bare feet and a backyard BBQ.  I think some of my dolls got into the spirit though!