What Money Can’t Buy: Christmas in McMurdo, Antarctica

In the holiday spirit I'm offering up this essay I wrote shortly after returning from Antarctica in 2005. Happy Holidays to all.

January 2005, and the wind at Cape Royds on Ross Island, Antarctica, had me pinned inside a Rac tent, with few books I wanted to read, two people I hardly knew, a dwindling food supply, and intermittent satellite access to the internet. When I logged on to see if anyone was missing me, one of those endless internet banners floated across the computer screen: holiday blues? Buy what you really wanted.
    I turned to David, a grey-haired, middle-aged bespectacled penguinologist, and his young, attractive assistant Jen.
    “How did you celebrate Christmas?”