We Wish you a Merry Christmas...

Last night we went for a walk to look at the beautiful Christmas lights outside people's houses.

It's really nice to see all the effort - and I love the mood this time of year with people out and about and all happy and greeting each other.

I laughed at how commercial anything can become though - there were all these ice cream vans trying to cash in on the people walking around looking at the lights. (Yes, I caved in and bought a freckle choc top with flake).

I finished off the pressie shopping for everyone today.
At Westfield, we saw a guy at a Cancer Council stand and hubby went up to speak to him. The Cancer Council do great research in terms of both clinical trials and epidemiological studies. He was telling us about how there's been a continuous rise in testicular cancer incidence recently and how no one knows why. He also went on to tell us about how he lost his parents, sister, father-in-law and sister-in-law to cancer (and teary me was trying to not cry - he had no one to spend Christmas with). We decided to become members so that we could contribute regularly to help fund their research.

I reckon that everyone reading this knows someone who has had cancer. It's actually quite weird to group all cancers together - I mean, some forms are easily treatable, and others have easily identifiable causes (eg smoking and lung cancer, or UV and skin cancer), but there's still so many people who cannot be treated - or who can't be easily treated. And there's so much we don't know about causes and other predictive factors.
For instance, we know that testicular cancer and infertility are related somehow, but one doesn't necessarily go with the other - and apart from a vague family history trend, we really don't know why men get testicular cancer, why it affects mainly young men, and why its incidence is on the increase. But please, check yourselves out. Don't take chances and think that a lump or bump somewhere is nothing.

Incidently, and on a completely different note, I ended up getting hubby a really nice collared t-shirt, the Little Britain series 2 DVD, the Rogue Traders' CD, a The Office calendar and a David Brent poster. (He also got a Weber BabyQ a couple of weeks ago - which was supposed to be his Christmas present, but he was too excited and used it already.)

My wish for the best ever Chrissie present is for hubby to be healthy.

My second wish is to gain enough self motivation to finish my final PhD chapter and write the conclusion before I start my new job in less than a month. I can handle doing the final corrections part-time, but really, I don't want to re-enrol for a new year after the Summer holidays so I have to submit the PhD by the end of Feb, I think (note to self: call student centre to confirm this.) So send your motivational messages this way!

I wish you all a happy and holy Christmas. Take care, enjoy the time with your precious family, and eat lots of yummy food.

I hope all your Christmas wishes come true.

Hugs and kisses,
Jez
xoxox