Joyeux Noël & Feliz Navidad

With only eight hours till midnight and the official start of seasonal festivities, I'm taking this opportunity to wish my sole reader of this blog a merry Christmas. She is a Señora S. Casal of Corrientes, and every Tuesday she sends me a chicken empanada by parcel post. Speaking of which, I should mention that I'm actually a vegetarian, and so I've been donating her meals to the local retirement village (which was at the centre of a salmonella scare only last week).