What do you "assign" to the Shire?

[Cailín]

All good things that brighten up a dark period. As for example:

- Getting drunk on Belgian Chocolates.
- Ice-skating on the Dam.
- Christmas shopping when you have no money to spend.
- Baking cookies and chocolate cake and watching silly romantic movies in soft pink pajamas.
- White wine and Christmas tree decorations.
- Winning the Risk game three times in a row while pretending to be completely indifferent and clueless (it drives people mad, seriously.)
- Friends who will never let you forget high school.
- Dressing up all your six Harrods Christmas bears.
- Building a tree house with your little sisters.
- After seeing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the second time, looking for Narnia in the big scary closet in the attic and only finding enormous spiders (the spiders going to Mordor, of course, the hilarity that ensued to the Shire).
- Watching Animal Planet after midnight while your friends give all the animals scary voice-overs with a distinctive German accent.

And most of all: my city in winter time. Especially when it has just snowed and there’s a thin silver blanket covering the canal side houses, the church and ancient library and the air is crispy clean and clear and you are suddenly convinced there is not a city in the world more beautiful than your own. I am normally not so patriotic, but I guess it is just Christmas sentiments.

Wow, that became rather more extended than I had in mind.