post christmas roundup 2006

Well, the tinsel and wrapping paper have settled after another Christmas...

It's all over so quickly really isn't it... all the lead up and build up and whatnot, and then it's all over in basically less than a day... *sigh*

At least it was a pretty good day, at least as far as I'm concerned...

I got up around 6am... went off for my walk... which was weird in and of itself for two reasons... firstly because last year I didn't walk on Christmas Day since it fell on a Sunday, so this was my first year doing it... but mostly because it was bloody cold out there! I actually came back with cold ears... and this is supposed to be the middle(ish) of summer... weird. And, rather unsurprisingly there wasn't a single solitary person about... well, almost... I saw maybe a dozen cars and two people out on the streets.

Then it was back here to get dressed (in one of my new smaller teeshirts and a smaller pair of jeans... woohoo me) and pack up the car, and just after 7:30 I was on my way down the road to Ma's grooving along to Robbie Williams' Swing When You're Winning... and interestingly enough it got me all perky and upbeat on the drive down, but on the drive home again it was appropriately mellow... but I think that says more about my state of mind than it does about the album itself.

I lobbed up at around 8... and Ma was actually dressed this year, shock horror... in the outfit she planned to wear for the whole day... and after an appropriate round of Merry Christmases and wrapped present gazing and photo taking (see above), we did our Traditional Christmas Breakfast... croissants, one with ham and cheese and one plain... then faffed about a bit so we could get to my cousin's place for 9:30... wrapped up some of the goodies to take her and the kids... and ended up unwrapping one present each... Ma's was her earrings so she could wear them (even though they didn't technically match her outfit) and I got to unwrap the Antelope statue we got at the zoo back in September (which I'd honestly forgotten about)... I'm definitely going to have to take some photos of it individually... it's just SO gorgeous and it doesn't show up that much in the photo I took of all my presents.

Then off to my cousin's place... and what a difference two years makes... especially when you're talking about kids... her eldest girl is 13 now I think, and is almost a whole person... and the little one is getting big too... my gifts went over very well... the diary and pen combo for the older one (who actually got the damn thing to lock first try, when I couldn't) and the piggy bank and bracelets for the little one... especially since she likes things that have her name on them (which the piggy bank did) and they'd only just thrown out some baby sized bracelets very similar to the ones I gave her the week before. So overall I did well...

And you know that it's been time well spent when a reasonably cheap canvas with reasonably cheap paint on it makes the recipient almost cry... yep... my cousin LOVED her painting and the poor lovey got all choked up... awww... bless...

I swear, my cousin never has ANY idea what to buy me (which is okay, before this whole painting thing, I had no idea what to buy her either), but she usually ends up giving me chocolate of some description... which some years is less successful than others (the chocolate Twister game springs to mind)... but I got a sizeable box of Ferrero Rocher (which I then split with Ma to avoid actually eating the whole damn box)... but at least it was better than last year's bag of Country Road rock (which I didn't even open)...

Anyhoo... we left there, drove back to Ma's, put the turkey and sausage meat (yum) on the Weber... I changed out of my very lovely but still slightly undersized "Christmas jeans" into the much more forgiving pair I'd brought with me just in case (given the orgy of food that I knew would be happening)... and then it was time for PRESENTS!

We didn't even try and ration ourselves like we attempted (and failed) last year... we just opened everything all at once (well, one at a time, but without a break)... everything except for the mystery bag that was marked "From Christmas Afternoon"... and you know when a time of day travels back in time and leaves you a parcel, you should wait to open it... even if it does just turn out to be two more DVDs...

It SO looks like I made out like the proverbial bandit this year... and well, I guess I did... but that was mostly because Ma kept invoking the "Away For Christmas" rule, especially with DVDs, since about August or September... the same with the half dozen or so tees that I'd needed (thanks to all the walking)... instead of getting them at the time, they got put away...

So, yeah... we started opening things... and it didn't feel like we stopped for quite a while... I ended up with a pile of DVDs that reached from the floor all the way up the my seated lap... and if I thought seventeen titles was the motherload last Christmas... or the twenty titles from my birthday... I was sadly mistaken... I have a new frame of reference for "Motherload of DVDs"...

THIRTY ONE TITLES... yeah, I kinda scared myself too...

• Aeon Flux (the animated series not the shitty movie)
• Batman Begins
• Beaches
• Brokeback Mountain
• Charlie's Angels
• Explorers
• Firefly
• The Frighteners
• The Goodies: A Second Helping
• House of Flying Daggers
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
• A Knight's Tale
• A Life Less Ordinary
• Lost in Space
• The Matrix Revolutions
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• The Mummy
• Robots
• Scrooged
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Shrek
• Shrek 2
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• Star Trek: Generations
• Star Trek: Insurrection
• Star Trek: Nemesis
• Underworld: Evolution
• V for Vendetta
• Video Hits 86-96 (which I blogged about once before, and I'm playing as we speak)

I also got a fair stack of books this year too...

• Micah and Danse Macrabre by Laurell K Hamilton
• Going Postal and Thud! by Terry Pratchett
• The Golem's Eye and Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud

So that's my "Currently Reading" worries taken care of for a while...

There was also a few other bits and pieces including a couple of elephants and my obscene camera toting Bad Taste Bear... a mini hamper with some random stuff in it (including more chocolate)... and actually a fair amount of clothes... the eight tees (one of which I'm wearing today), a pair of camo shorts (for inside wear only), some Calvins, my cowboy hat (which, just between you and me, I'm STILL not sure about) and my bright red sandally things...

Ma was very pleased with both of her seahorse related presents... not only the calendar (which she knew about, but hadn't actually seen in its final form) but also the Pink Seahorse painting... and well, you can never go wrong with DVDs...

So once all the tissue paper and ribbon had been rounded up and appropriately disposed of, I put my new Video Hits on and fudged about taking some photos, helped Ma with bits and piece for lunch, that kind of thing...

Lunch was very nice actually... not that it isn't always nice, but I think maybe we both were a little more restrained portion-wise and so didn't feel like we needed to roll away from the table afterwards.

And we did some random veg on the Weber this year... just mushrooms and half capsicums and onion, but I think we will definitely have to do it again... it was very tasty.

Just after dinner was over and we were taking a closer squizz at one of Ma's presents (from her best friend), Ma's sister showed up unannounced (at the front door no less... which was odd, because nobody ever uses Ma's front door)...

Now you will notice that I said "Ma's sister", not "my Aunt"... the very fact that she's the former does make her the latter... but she and I had a "falling out" maybe 9-10 years ago... and while we're on speaking terms now, it's always weird when our paths cross (although the last time was actually Christmas morning at my cousin's place two years ago, so it's not like it happens a lot). Anyway, like I was saying, it's weird, because it almost feels as though the pair of us are trying just that little bit too hard to be "normal" around each other. And it doesn't help that we have the same sort of quick, slightly sarcastic wit... so we end up just being funny at each other... too, too weird...

So she stuck around for a while... started telling a long boring story with no point, so I kind of wandered into the kitchen for a bit (under the pretext of tidying the table and getting together some of the goodies for her to take away)...

Eventually she took herself off home, so Ma and I had some pudding and custard and settled down to watch a couple of episodes of The Goodies (oooh so scary) and Aeon Flux (weird as hell, but so awesome).

Neither of us really felt like any dinner... which is pretty much our default state for Christmas evening... so we kind of just picked at the bits and pieces that were left over from lunch and then did this Big Quiz thing that was in the paper on Sunday... ended up scoring like 56%... which was better than I'd expected (especially with all the local sport and politics questions), but still kind of lame...

We tidied up a bit, watched the repeat of Mythbusters Christmas, then we packed up all the goodies and leftovers both for me to take home, but also the random stuff she's taking to Second Christmas today. I, unsurprisingly, decided against going to Second Christmas... especially when I worked out that it would take about two hours of driving from my place (thank you whereis.com.au)... and, to be honest, I would have liked to talk Ma out of going, but she had a bunch of presents for people up there, and it wasn't fair to make her not go especially at the eleventh hour just because I didn't want to go. Next year, however, if they're having it in the same location, I'm so going to talk her out of it... starting early... *wink*

I ended up trundling home at about 9:30 or so (well, when I left Ma's place anyway)... cruising down the road listening to Robbie... then unpacked everything, put all the DVDs away in their temporary home, hung up my clothes and kind of wandered around randomly a bit listening to Chet Baker... a nice cruisy smooth end to the day...

Only another 364 days before we get to do it all over again...

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