vow of stability

I should become a monk just so that I never ever have to travel again, at least not for the holidays. A ready-made excuse to go nowhere. Not that I mind seeing the extended families, that part of it all was quite pleasant. Would do again. But included with familial stuff is lameness such as getting dragged to a Protestant Christmas Eve thingie and driving for many hours. I approached with dread and contemplated sneaking out, but it didn't come to that. Fortunately, it was banal enough to be ignored while meditating instead. A cutesy speech about tradition and how we all have some and it's not all evil interspersed with a couple Christmas carols - including Adeste, fideles - that I didn't mind singing along with. No God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen and no more than two verses of any one of them, though, which is unfortunate, since I've forgotten those and would have enjoyed rediscovering them. If one is going to get Protestantism, may as well get the best of it. I should hope it's the last Protestant church I step into for quite some time. I can't think of any Protestants I know who could be marrying or dying in the near future, so I think we're in the clear. I'm fairly sure I wasn't automatically excommunicated for setting foot in there, but I'll confess it just to be sure. I managed to get through the familial dinner afterwards without once telling my cousins [etc] to "depart Satan's fold for Christ's Church" or other such impolite phrases.

In other news: never trust those Arabs or their convert ilk. The Greeks may be painful to deal with, but they're at least reliable.

The next day, we had the old Norwegian family Bible handed down to us, it'll eventually go to me. Should figure out whether there is a cute Latin phrase for something handed down to the youngest male descendant [done so on the logic that he'll survive the longest]. Also got to scrutinize the patrilinear genealogy, it's not really interesting before the 19th century because it's just Norwegian peasants in a small commune in Hardanger until we lose track in the early 16th century.

And I hate travelling.