The holidays are lumbering up and I realize that I should send out greeting cards and buy a few gifts before it turns into procrastination, though I may be there already. There are a lot of personalities around me and it will be a challenge to think of good gifts for everyone. I asked about the holiday season and he had to scan his brain (Google) to figure out what traditions there are in Nepal that would be analogous to Christmas and Hanukkah. They don’t even get a New Years celebration for another four months or so – December is a slow month for Nepal. The big festival that everyone celebrates is Dashain where there are things like family gatherings and gift giving, but there is nothing quite as significant during the winter season that could compare to the Western holidays. He assures me there is always some kind of festival going on among the Nepalese communities, but they are fragmented according to the various ethnic or caste groups and not everyone celebrates or even knows about each of them.