MERRY CHRIS-TMAS

I was going to write each of you letters inside Christmas cards from the North Pole, but as with everything else about the festive season, I waited til the last minute.

So this will have to suffice.

We all know Christmas can be a stressful time, and that maybe it has lost some of its lustre with the focus on presents and commercialism.

But it's still what it always was, if you get past all that...a time to be with the people you love.

So while Santa sets out on his journey to your house tonight -- he couldn't find room for me on his sled -- I'll be thinking of you all...

...and hoping a tingly, unmistakably good feeling of warmth envelopes your heart.

The REAL Queen of England

AS MOST OF YOU KNOW, THE QUEEN IS STILL ALIVE AND REIGNING OVER US COMMONWEALTH SUBJECTS.

And as we in the UK, Canada and other Commonwealth countries say or sing: Long Live the Queen or God Save the Queen.

(Although those hats HAVE TO GO! OK, we don't sing that, but that's just me).

In fact, her Royal Highnessnessness just this week became the oldest-ever living British monarch, at 81 years and 244 days (and counting).

That surpasses the previous UK record of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, the incredibly exquisite woman below.

While she's the oldest-ever living British monarch, Elizabeth is not the longest-serving at Buckingham Palace.

She will be if she can make it, with crown still on head and standing upright, until Sept. 9, 2015 -- she'd be 89, we'd assume -- at which time she would take that title too, from Victoria.

And according to one source, she had 425 Queen-related engagements in 2007 alone, so she's still going strong and shows few signs of slowing down.

When I was a kid growing up, we always sang God Save the Queen. Our gracious Queen. She became queen three years before I was born, so she's always been a part of my life.

There are plenty of feelings here in Canada and, I'm sure, in other current or one-time Commonwealth nations -- like Australia, New Zealand, the Phillippines, India, etc. -- that it's time for the monarchy to be abandoned, at least by us.

But there are also monarchists here and in many other countries who love what the Queen and what our ties to the UK and mean...

...In terms of our history and all, our heritage, the nation we've become. And, like much of the rest of the world, many people here still love her and the rest of the Royal Family.

I'm not sure I hold a strong opinion either way.

I think I probably lean more to seeing her and the British royalty as nothing but figureheads, but there still is some affinity we have with the UK that's unlike any other we have with other countries.

In any event, without any intent to offend, I wanted to say there's another British Queen to rival the real one, at least in my world.

Twelve years after the last episode was filmed in Coventry, I can still see her on public TV, every day, here in Canada. She's much funnier and more outrageous. But she still wears stupid hats.

And this is her.

She's Hyacinth Bucket (she pronounces it Bouquet, starring Patricia Routledge). She was the star of a brilliantly funny UK sitcom called Keeping Up Appearances, which aired on BBC1 from 1990-95.

In 2004, the show was named the 12th best British sitcom ever. It's about a social-climbing snob and her poor husband and their lives together as she tries to climb the social ladder pretending to be what she's not.

And the impression I always had, with the hats she wore and all, was that she thought she was the Queen of England. Or at least trying to be.

At the very least, the show seemed to be a parody of that Uppah British uppah class mentality that's so often portrayed in film and on screen (although to be honest, I never, for a moment, have ever witnessed it in real life).

Anyway...I mean, don't they look at least SOMEWHAT the same?

Even their families seem to have similarities, if you look at it in a humourous, Monty Pythonesque sort of light...

HRH and Prince Philip

Mrs. Bucket and her long-suffering hubby, Rich-awd

Prince Philip in full regalia

Rich-awd in full regalia...and anguish

Prince Chawls, the louse and heir-apparent (oldest ever too, I believe)

Onslow, Hyacinth's beer-swilling slob of a brother-in-law

Prince Chawls and Camilla Pahkuh-Balls

Onslow and his sex-starved wife, Daisy

The Royuhl Family and some big fat guy

The Keeping Up Appearances Family

So while I respect the real Queen, so regal and royal, I just howl in laughter at the other queen, so funny and loyal.

And I trust that Britons, who have the best sense of humour in the world, will giggle too...

...Before they tie me to a stake, lance out my liver and kidneys as they swig back some ale, set me afire while I slowly bleed to death and tell jokes as I take my final breath, gasping "God Save the Queen."

Christmas Day Bash at WW's!!!*

THERE'LL BE PLENTY OF SUPER SEXY GIRLS...and one boy...


AND CERTAINLY MORE FESTIVE AMBIANCE AND SPARKLING LIGHTS THAN YOU CAN FIND ANYWHERE ELSE...

I HAVE PLENTY OF MUSIC TO LISTEN TO AND VIDS TO WATCH...

AND LORDY, THERE'S NO SHORTAGE OF SNOW....

PLUS I HAVE PLENTY OF ROOM FOR YOU TO SLEEP, SHOULD YOU FIND THE NEED TO...

AND I'VE ACTUALLY CLEANED MY BATHTUB, REALLY...

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day can leave me with a lot of time on my hands as my kids do their thing...

SO THE ENTIRE BLOG WORLD IS HEREBY INVITED TO WW'S PLACE ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 2007, TO WILE AWAY THE AFTERNOON AND BEYOND, IF YOU LIKE.

We (the editorial we, that is) realize this might be considered late notice, especially for those in Australia, India, South Africa, the UK, the Phillippines and other locales in Canada and beyond the Great White North.

But you have a week. Get on the phone and book it, Dano. You have Airmiles. You have money you've been saving up just for this trip you were anticipating. You have nothing else to do, no one else to be with. Just do it.

Think of what you'll be missing...time with me and various bloggers instead of with family, friends and others...hor's doeuvres til the cows come home, rum and eggnog, Caesars to your heart's content, beer, jovial conversation...

And, to help you offset the cost of your trip, five Canadian cents for every comment you've ever posted on my blog, to be calculated by you. Wives, husbands and significant others are, of course, welcome.

RSVP to my email address. Homo Escapeons will provide comic relief.

(*This is just a joke, although if anyone actually shows up, knock yourselves out!)

WHERE ARE YOU, GEORGE DUBYA?

HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED DUBYA'S DISAPPEARANCE?

HE'S VIRTUALLY VANISHED FROM THE AIRWAVES.

HE'S LESS VISIBLE NOW THAN...OSAMA BIN LADEN!!!

Maybe they're hiding out together in Pakistan?

Maybe Bush has donned that silly military uniform like he did on the aircraft carrier after the U.S. conquered an overwhelmed Iraq -- where WMDs were never found -- and is sitting having tea with Bin Laden in the hills of Pakistan?

Maybe Bush has joined the Taliban. After all, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. If you can't find 'em, be 'em.

We'd like to see Bush in a head covering. Wouldn't Al Jazeera or whatever that Muslim TV network is called get a hoot out of that?

THE REPUBLICANS ARE HIDING HIM, AREN'T THEY?

HIM AND HIS IDIOTIC IRAQ INVASION AND WAR ON TERROR.

TWO TERMS WORTH OF GLOBAL GAFFES, AND HE'S GONE.

HE'S THERE, BUT HE'S HISTORY...UNDERGROUND.

THE SPIN DOCTORS ARE SILENCING HIS STUPIDITY.

THAT'S IT.

TRYING TO GLOSS OVER HIS GROSSNESS.

IN THE HOPE THEY CAN WIN AGAIN IN 2008.

Bush has been nothing but a 'Publican Puppet, a paper bag prince, the son of a president from Texas with kazillions in oil money, who avoided the military and was pampered into the post he has now because of voting irregularities in Florida.

He was improperly proclaimed president and is so dim and far right of centre he's off the map.

With the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld holding his hand on behalf of corporate America, he enraged an entire Muslim world with a hyper-aggressive resolve that was misplaced from the beginning.

It was based on untruths and designed to further escalate, at whatever cost, the differences in ways of life. And it so succeeded, but it has so backfired.

Aggression results in aggression. Religious absurdity results in religious absurdity. The Muslim world isn't ready now, and may never be ready, for the Western World and its way of life. And now, those two cultures are clashing.

And the whole world, including Canada, is involved in a war Bush started as a reason to invade the Middle East. And 9-11, as horrible as it was, shouldn't be considered as the catalyst.

This was Bush and his corporate cronies.

And it's still ugly and it's still there.

It's just the Republicans are concealing Bush and the media is being ignorantly or maybe not so ignorantly complicit in its non-reporting or burying of what's still going on in Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan and Pakistan.

So the Republicans can actually spend the next 11 months campaigning, pretending that Bush hasn't existed and that the American government hasn't alienated the rest of the world for the past eight or nine years.

I don't know if the Democrats will be much better, if they get in.

But they couldn't possibly be worse.