Crafty Christmas

Amongst my Christmas presents this year were two craft type things, which I suspect may be aimed at children but are probably at the right level for my creative talent.

One was a Make Your Own Morph set. Morph is supplied in his raw form - a lump of plasticine - along with instructions turning it into the character. It all sounds simple but somehow I'm not sure it will be.

The other was a Pom Pom Owl kit, with wool to make two pom pom owls. Again, it should be child's play and again I'm certain I'll mess it up.

I will return to post the results when I'm done.

Belated Christmas Greetings

Merry Christmas to you all. Rather late as I've been in The North, away from computers for the past week.

Christmas was good - plenty of gifts, food and booze, but the best part was totally unrelated to the festive period. The parts of my visit I enjoyed were the walks on the beach with a small ageing, fluffy dog.

I may be from the same town as the X Factor winner, but (part 2)

I will not be taking part in the karaoke at the office Christmas party on Monday.

I don't do singing. Even if I did do singing, it wouldn't be in front of my new colleagues, on a Monday lunchtime, stone cold sober. Equally, I'm not that keen on hearing my new colleagues sing on a Monday lunchtime stone cold sober.

Lame Christmas Lights...

I was going to write a post about how lame Christmas decorations seem to be this year.

I was going to moan about the three pathetic light decorations on lamp posts in my neighboourhood

I was going to moan about the pretty but insubstantial tree lights in my nearest shopping area

I was going to moan about how ugly the lights are on Oxford Street this year

I was going too moan about the almost complete lack of lights in Covent Garden

I was going to speculate on whether these half-arsed efforts were due to spending cutbacks, a victim of "the current economic climate" or of environmental concerns.

But then I saw this which more than made up for the other poor shows.

First of the Season

I had my first mince pie of the year yesterday. They aren't my favourite Christmas food (that honour goes to Christmas Cake or possibly even the much maligned sprout), but somehow the mince pie signifies the start of the festive season most to my mind.

Sinterklaas, the Black Petes and EuroPop

Last night I celebrated Sinterklaas for the first time. Sinter Klaas usually visits children at 2.30 and 7.30, but he arrived rather late in the pub, by which time the excitement had build up (and wine had been taken).

He was accompanied by the traditional Sinterklaas helpers, the Black Petes. The Black Petes however have been forced to change with the times, and had blue faces rather than black, as blue-ing up is not politically incorrect. They threw sweets and cinnamon biscuits into the crowds and a few lucky ladies were selected to receive gifts from Santa and answer whether they had been good all year, which was as seedy as it sounds.

Then the evening was rounded off with another thing the Dutch seem to love - bad EuroPop dance music including tinny techno-ish versions of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and "Daydream Believer" and a few numbers in their native tongue.

Hope you all enjoyed Sinterklaas as much as I did.

Happy Sinterklaasavond

Or perhaps it is Merry Sinterklaasavond.

Either way, I shall find out tonight as I'm going to a Dutch pub with a Dutch friend to celebrate this Dutch tradition.

It involves gifts and poems. The gifts are bought, but the poems still need to be written...

Saturation Point

Something strange has happened. I don’t want anything for Christmas.

Various relatives have been asking what I would like for Christmas and I can’t think of anything. At a push, I can probably think of a couple of DVDs that I wouldn’t mind, but nothing I’m really that bothered about. And even stranger, I don’t want any more clothes.

I feel as if I have enough of everything already.

Obviously a bigger house, a top range camera, a round-the-world trip and a speed boat (have I ever mentioned that I’m great at driving speed boats? I am) would be welcome, but in the realm of small material things, I have enough.

There is one exception. Books. I could never have too many books. But part of the joy of books for me is the thrill of hunting them down, on ReadItSwapIt, at the library or browsing in bookshops, particularly the ones on Charing Cross Road. Giving someone a list of books on Amazon to buy for me would take away part of the pleasure.

The OH and I have never really gone in for ostentatious gifts and have never gone into debt over Christmas (or anything other than the mortgage) but this year he feels pretty much the same as I do, that it is pointless spending for the sake of it, so we are cutting back. It isn’t anything to do with the credit crunch, but we’ve reached saturation point.

As for everyone else, I’m thinking that I might be happier with another year’s sponsorship of a dog, even if the quarterly magazine often reduces me to tears.

I remember as a child finding it hard to understand that my parents didn't really want anything for Christmas (we always ignored this and bought them something), but now I can understand it.

Christmas Catch Up

Should I do a little round up of what has happened in the eons since I last posted?

Christmas
We spent in the north with my family. It was the first time the OH and I had actually spent Christmas together as he normally spends it with his family. I was apprehensive about this to say the least, but it went ok. Yes, my family bickered and irritated me, but really it wasn’t so bad. We all survived.

It was very sad going to visit my auntie in hospital where she is making slow progress after her stroke. She is making some progress, but when her speech is limited to Good Morning, Yes and No (which she often gets around the wrong way) it is frustrating, and clearly gets her down. On the upside, the MRSA has gone so she should be able to start proper therapy soon.

The OH bought me a great present which wasn’t what I was expecting at all – he bought me a day at the Sanctuary Spa which I’ve always wanted to go to but have been put off by the price. So I’ve got a day of pampering and relaxation to look forward to at some point in 2008. I also received lots of other good gifts, including the book of the exhibition I went to a while ago (Amazon Wishlists are a wonderful thing for guiding the family in the right direction!).


New Year
We decide to opt out of New Years Eve celebrations by going away, just the two of us. We went to Canterbury to stay at the Abode Hotel, having enjoyed the one in Glasgow so much. So we watched films and drank champagne in bed as midnight struck and I enjoyed it enormously.

The strangest thing that happened over the holiday was that I got quite into the darts! I was scathing of it at first but was sucked in by Wayne “Hawaii 501” Mardle, his garish shirts and his range of facial expressions. Sadly, just after I’d adopted him as my favourite, he went out of the competition. But I still enjoyed the final and was amusing the OH with my almost insightful observations by the end of the tournament.

A Christmas Wish

As well as world peace and a shaggy dog, I would really like Malcolm Middleton to be the Christmas Number 1.



Please make my Christmas wish come true!

Yule Fool

It might be because the weather has turned suddenly cold. It might be because my sister has been demanding to know what I want. It may be the bombardment of Christmas gifts emails in my Inbox. It might be because I work near Covent Garden, a quintessentially Christmassy place. Whatever the reason, I’m feeling quite Christmassy already which is unusual for me.

So I was perusing the Christmas section of the John Lewis website, contemplating various decorations and colour schemes for our first Christmas in our new place, when I spotted this.

Apparently it is an idea imported from USA. The idea is that it saves space apparently, although my solution would be to just by a smaller tree. I’m sure it has been engineered to be safe, but really I wouldn’t trust it not to fall down. Besides which it looks hideous.

Although as a practical joke, you could swap the proper tree for this one in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve and stick all the presents on the ceiling. That would certainly liven things up on Christmas morning!

Gifts and Ghosts

So that's Christmas over with for another year.

I was expecting it to be worse but it was ok. I got through it and it was easier this year.

Two years ago, my Dad died on the day after Boxing Day. So Christmas is a bit of a struggle now.

But it was easier this year. The urge to still buy presents for him seems to have subsided - while he was alive it was always so difficult to buy for him but last year the shops were full of things he would have liked. And the day passed without tears, which made me feel guilty, which is perhaps why I'm writing this now, to show that even though we weren't sat around sad all Christmas (or worse, the forced jollity of last year), I still missed him.

The other (much lesser) thing about going 'home' as that it always stirs up memories of the ex. Its been 9 years now, so really I should be over it but visits to my mum's are always haunted by dreams of him and wondering what could have been.

So now having been fully depressing, I will move onto the good bit of Christmas - the presents! With our immient house-move (actually still some time off due to problems with the lease now), this was the focus of our Christmas presents. Here's some highlights:

2 Alessi Storage jars for the kitchen (to add to the 3 I already have)
Metal fruit bowl, mug tree and kitchen roll holder
Ceramic bathroom set (toothbrush holder, soap dish etc)
Spice rack
A hefty sum of money in John Lewis vouchers
Dark brown slouchy boots
Beautifully soft dressing gown (its been a struggle to get dressed most days since receiving this)
Pyjamas & slippers (it wouldn't be Christmas without them)
Various DVDs - Ross Noble, Mighty Boosh Live, State of Play and Brick
A bag of Haribo!


And here we are waiting around for another year to begin, with a fridge full of chocolate and cheese.

Bloated

Not really much to report on the party front. It passed pretty much without incident really.

My Secret Santa gift was fairly awful - a jangly bracelet thing - not at all my sort of thing and its already shedding beads, but of course I had to say how lovely it was for fear of offending the unknown buyer. I'm always really disappointed by Secret Santas though - I don't know why I always expect something great or at least funny, but I nearly always just get some generic woman's gift.

Anyway, the meal was fine, although I've come to the conclusion that I just can not eat a three course meal without feeling ill. Rather pathetic I know.

So tired and bloated, but rather smug at being sober and sensible, I left before 11. I had to wait three tubes for the right one, which wasn't too long, but then half way home they decided to redirect it so we all had to get off and wait another 15 minutes for one going that way. So in the end it was 6 trains before the right one, which is pretty poor service.

And for the final leg of the journey, I was stuck in a carriage that had the faint odour of vomit and a Spanish man, chatting up a Swedish girl by telling her how great Abba were, quoting statistics about their record sales, saying they were better than the Beatles and singing Fernando in Spanish. I couldn't get out of there quick enough.

I don't like Abba. Another unpopular opinion I know and its not really that much to do with them. I was once stuck on a minibus for five hours with a drunken ex-rugby player from Yorkshire who sang along to the Abba CD for the full length of the journey. Somehow everyone else managed to sleep through it, except me and I haven't been able to stomach Abba since without flashbacks. This was a work outing with my previous company (a day trip to Calais!) which was rather different from last night's do.

Christmas Grinch

I'm just not in a Christmas mood. I was last week, but its been and gone.

Tonight is the office 'party'. It isn't really much of a party - nobody changes clothes and its in a very civilised restaurant - last year it was in the meat-market hell-hole On Anon, so I suppose the safety of a restaurant is preferable. But I'm really not in the mood. Despite being here over 2 years, I don't really know many people very well - most of the people I know well and like aren't coming. The others I either know and don't like, or are incredibly clichey and only talk to people in their own teams. I always go to these things though - firstly in an attempt to socialise with more people here in the hope it will get better and secondly, I'm incapable of saying no to free food/booze.

But at the minute, I'm thinking I'd have rather gone for a wander round Topshop, then home to one of my rice concoctions and an episode of Law & Order on the Hallmark Channel.

Project Christmas

After this morning's post, I was griped with the determination to make some decorations.

I spent most of my lunch hour looking for festive shaped cookie cutters, but to no avail. This even included going into a dedicated Christmas shop, but star-shaped cutters it seems can not be bought for love nor money in the my locale.

Not to be defeated, I resorted to printing images of the internet to use as templates. I must admit, I have form with type of thing, having produced a great string of cardboard onions to complete a Parisian fancy dress costume, which was then followed up by giant cardboard pineapples that dangled dangerously from the ceiling at a particularly messy Hawaiian themed NYE party.

So tonight has been spent sat in a sea of wrapping paper, card, Prit stick and wire. The result - a chain of 8 reindeer and a string of five stars.

I'm fairly pleased with results (the rubbish camera phone picture doesn't do them justice on this you will have to trust me), but it hasn't made much impact on the overall room. I think I need about three-times as many and I'm not sure I've got the man hours left before Christmas.

Hark the herald angels swig?

I've finished my Christmas shopping, buying the final couple of things yesterday. I've wrapped them all up (except the office Secret Santa which hopefully should be arriving soon).

This morning, I lifted down the box of decorations to see what we had that didn't require a tree (since we aren't going to be here over Christmas we aren't bothering with a tree). A couple of strands of tinsel, a few glittery snowflakes and two wire angels. Not exactly enough to transform the lounge into a magical Christmas grotto.

The OH always laughs at this wire angel too. To my eye, probably helped by having gone to a religious school, it is obviously an angel heralding the good news of Christ's birth on some sort of angelic horn. To the OH, I'd bought an angel swigging from a wine bottle. Judge for yourself.

I might have to buy some more decorations, but really I quite fancy making some myself. I'm haunted by images of that Danielle Proud woman smugly doing marvellous crafty things in the Sunday Times each week.