DEC 24, 18 .. CHRISTMAS EVE DAY

On blogspot, I just published a complete copy of the beloved poem, ‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

http://bobbacaps.blogspot.com/2018/12/dec-24-18-twas-night-before-christmas.html

IF you choose to read it, I hope you enjoy it. Personally, it has been many years since I sat down and took the time to read and enjoy it. I wish I knew and understood where ideas such as posting a copy of this poem on blogspot come from.

Patti and I really hope that you have a happy, joyful and most of all a safe Christmas Eve Day.

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Russia has many holidays and observances but not one of them fall on December 25th.

https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/russia/

Why don’t they celebrate Christmas on December 25th here in Russia?

Christmas is a religious holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth by those who call themselves Christians. The church per se was basically one unified church that began to split into several parts leading to the Schism of 1054. The most prominent sub-part became The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, that is the second-largest Christian church in the world, with approximately 200–260 million members. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, the Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Out of the above mix from the pure Eastern Orthodox Church came the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches.

Here is where we are going with this : The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January 7, 2019, and NOT on December 25, 2018. So for me here in Russian Siberia, tomorrow, December 25th is just another day in the month of December. I am NOT going into why the Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January the 7th.

In general, here in Russia, the period from January 1st to the 10th is an ‘unofficial’ holiday period.

So you didn’t listen to me and did read on here. Well again I’ll say :

***Do yourself a favor and just skip the rest of this post.***

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I wish that I truly knew where Mike and I will be staying tomorrow, December 25th, Christmas Day at least in some / or in many parts of the world. This I do know, no matter where we end up, Mike and I will be comfortable and warm. There are many on this planet who will be neither comfortable nor warm.

As I wrote about in detail yesterday, our rental of the flat we are now in, has become cloudy and somewhat contentious. Our landlord first said he was going to triple our rent on December 31st through January 2nd. So we decided to leave on December 30th. Then he wanted more money from the period of December 25th to the 30th. Then he said we would have to leave our current flat and he would move us to another flat.

Saturday I went on-line and booked a rental myself. It looked great on-line; it was less expensive, had two bedrooms, was in an attractive new-appearing building and was located close to the railway station.  BUT I had to agree to a no-cancellation clause by submitting my credit card to guarantee payment.

Today Mike and I visited the new flat.

1. It was NOT located where the on-line profile showed it was located. It was in a completely different part of Abakan, far away from the railway station in (call it) an elderly building.
2. It did not have two bedrooms. It only had one.
3. It did not look one-iota as spiffy as the on-line photos showed it. It was not a dump but it was not too desirable either.

What to do?

I’d taken my laptop with me to test the Wi-Fi and to (in case of problems) show our contact man what I was expecting.

Our contact man said, “Those are old photos.” etc. After some long discussions he amiably said it would be OK for us to cancel our agreement. Which I did on-line reading : If for any reason you cancel this agreement you will pay-in-full the total amount of rent due.

Patti will attempt to call Priceline / Booking.com tomorrow and see what is up.

Yes I cancelled. But what I was shown by our contact man was in no way what was promised in on-line photos and location.

Over the years I’ve been able to successfully cancel binding NON-cancellation agreements with Priceline / Booking.com when the property management agreed to allow a cancellation.

Time will tell. I’m optimistic it will all work out.

As all of this was ‘coming down’ Mike called our current landlord and Mike was told that we would NOT have to move and that our rent would remain the same as during our first 8 nights.

Tomorrow we shall see what we shall see. Will we get to remain here and NOT have to move? Will our rent remain the same? Does The Shadow Know?

Again, Patti and I hope all of you have a happy, joyful and most of all, a safe Christmas Eve Day.

Patti and Cap

• ← DEC 23, 18 .. LUNCH WITH FRIENDS
• DEC 25, 18 .. MERRY CHRISTMAS 2018 →