Dec. 21 = Start Of Winter. Really?

Thinking back, winter started some time back in November. But official start of winter is December 21. Funny thing is that ever since we got into this Christmas month of December the weather gods have been extremely gentle with us. All throughout this month temperatures have been hovering around the freezing mark, which I directly compare to last winter’s temps in northern Florida. So it seems that the Almanakers have been right when predicting a “Tropical Winter” for western Canada. Well, lets not praise the day before evening has come. Things can still get pretty nasty. But at least so far we have been more than lucky. Snow has all but disappeared, only a thin frozen layer remains of the once powdery white stuff. The other big topic of the town is the oil price. Of course, everybody is happy that gas can now be had for under 80cts/liter, but the Alberta government is brooding over how to compensate for the short-comings of their budget. While all that talk has been going on, the opposition “Wild Rose Party” has decided to throw in the towel and rather join the Progressive Conservatives when lucrative jobs are handed out. Talk about deceiving their voters! Well, this provincial political wish-wash is nothing compared to what is going on in the U.S. of A. But we shan’t talk about that, shall we? There is this dividing border which makes us Canadians to “Aliens”. I have recently met a great deal of people who have set the holiday destination to be Cuba. That’s right… Cuba as in Castro.  They have already expressed concern that American ventures will soon run up the price level on the island. That is if the USA is starting to see things like they should have been seen a few decades ago. While European ventures have been welcomed by Fidel, American capital has been absent. That must have been a thorn in the eye of quite a few American corporations. But Fidel’s brother has spoken that “socialism” is not to be abandoned. And really, try to think about it: Hasn’t America done a whole lot of business with borrowing money from communistic China?  Tzztzzz….. I don’t want to speak about a lot of Republicans who are still seeing Canada as a socialist country. But there might be just a tad more of social responsibility in the great white of North America. And that’s all of today’s ramblings. In case writer’s block hits me and you won’t be able to delight in further reading of this blog before Christmas please accept our best wishes for a                        MERRY CHRISTMAS