Happy what-ness.

Did you hear what I heard? Was that... sleigh bells? That can only mean one thing. That's right, children... it's the sound of jolly old fire alarm. The engines are burning up.

Yes, yes... Christmas freaking day. Don't you just love this time of year? (Judging by your reaction, perhaps "love" was the wrong word.) Don't you just fireplug this time of year? (That's a bit better.) Over here in Big Green land, we have a reputation for keeping Christmas better than any virtual pop band you can name that traverses interstellar space and has a robot friend (and hangs out with Lincoln). Sure, that's mostly down to our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, now a venerable nine holidays old and still available for purchase and/or download at a retailer near you (or not so near you ... check us out on the Russian mp3 download site Yanga.ru, which ranks us among "Best Artists" under Psychedelic Rock... and whose url sounds strangely like "kangaroo", of which there are few in mother Russia). Yes, it's hard to think of "Christmas" and "obscure indie alternative psychedelic (in Russia) rock" in the same breath without thinking Big Green. (So far, that's the legacy. Don't spend it all in one place.)

But our holiday isn't just about the music. No, no... we follow tradition over here. Every Christmas, we break out the crackers and start passing out gifts, just like any normal band. And friends, this year is certainly no exception, even though we are bobbing here in space, directionless, our controls replaced by discarded vegetables, our navigation effectively disabled. No matter - the man-sized tuber donned his garish Christmas sweater and led a somewhat enfeebled rendition of "Oh, Holy Night" (which degenerated into "Oh, Holy Shit!" when the fire alarm went off). Due to limited shopping opportunities in deep space, we did a sort of round-robin gift exchange, a secret Santa type deal, drawing straws for gifts.

Who did I pick? Well, as it happened, I got Big Zamboola. He's a little hard to shop for, but I got my hands on something I always felt he needed - head covering. Unlike full-sized planets, Zamboola doesn't benefit from active weather patterns, mainly because he is no longer orbiting a star, so his delicate surface is virtually unprotected by cloud cover. (Sounds practical, eh? WTF - it was all I could think of, frankly.) My "secret Santa" was Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who handed me something that might have been a battleship or an enormous Chicklet, but was, in fact, a humble kitchen sponge. (Marvin went a little overboard on the wrapping this year. Could have knocked me over with a feather when I opened that sucker.) Our shipboard penury notwithstanding, it was a holiday celebration very much in the spirit of previous years. Lincoln made punch. (And that punch had a kick - thank you, great emancipator.)

So whoever you are, whatever you are, Big Green sends its best from its flying yurt. See you back on Earth.... assuming we arrive sometime this century. (Are the primaries over yet?)