post-christmas roundup 2008

oh christmas tree...The overwhelming chromatic theme this Christmas was Red...

Seriously, I didn't quite realise how much red we had going on... but quite a bit of Ma's jewellery was red, I shot Ma's presents against my red sofa, the background of the Christmas goodies photo was red, we had new plates and place mats this year that extended the red theme... it was just all about red!

As we also "enjoyed" the hottest Christmas Day for nearly a decade! The weather topped out at 30.7°C... blah!

But I digress...

Yesterday stared out the same way as any other Thursday... I got up and went for my walk... but unlike any other Thursday it was pretty much deserted out there. Yet again, I thought that THIS year was going to be the year where I didn't see any other walkers/joggers... alas, it wasn't to be... but I only ran into maybe half a dozen of them... including Santa! Okay, so the guy just had the white beard and the belly going, no actual Santa suit, but still.

What I did notice was that there seemed to be an above average amount of sketchy folk around... including a couple of very, very, very drunk boys laying on the paved edge of the river (one of them said/yelled something to/at me as I went past, but I had my earphones in and didn't hear him)... but between them, the guy sitting on a park bench in Wellington Square and the "Asian car hoons/drug dealers" at the top of the hill, it was kind of an odd walk.

Anyway, I came home, showered up, put on my new Christmas duds (purple Bonds trunks, a purple/pink/black teeshirt, jeans and turquoise Aquaman thongs), loaded up the car (which didn't take as long as I thought it might, mostly because I'd packed everything into those big green shopping bags), checked everything off on my list so that I didn't forget anything (like I've done just about every year for the last decade), slid the very cheesy Christmas "Dance Party" CD in the stereo and tootled up to Ma's.

Not bad for about 7am...

So once I got there and we'd done some random unpacking and sorting out and tidying up and setting the table we sat down to our traditional Christmas breakfast of croissants... nummy, even if they were a little well done (which they end up being every year without fail). I also gave Ma one of her presents to open with breakfast, since it was the jewellery that I'd earmarked as matching her Christmas outfit.

Then there was much organisation and whatnot before we headed over to my cousin's place at 9. Actually before we left Ma also opened some of the regifted DVDs (since we needed to reregift one of them to Miss Oh) and the seahorse towel/backpack combo... well, she thought the backpack was the FUNNIEST thing ever... she even took it with us instead of her handbag...

Ahhh, La Cousina... I know she's family and everything, but damn that girl is a world of beige... and seriously stuck in the 80's...

Anyway, they were all appreciative of their presents, Princess T was highly surprised about the proposed trip interstate for her birthday (two of her Christmas presents were directly linked to said trip), and as always I needed to have my little folding scissors out to assist with present unwrapping.

Like last year, I came away with a double pass to the movies, unfortunately Hoyts this time, not Greater Union (which is where we normally go)... but a free double pass is a free double pass, so I'm not complaining...

We stayed probably longer than we should have (only because it meant that we didn't put the Weber on as early, and we ended up eating mid afternoon), and highly unflattering photos were taken. I still have no idea why... nobody in our family really LIKES having their photo taken, but La Cousina's partner marched us out into the front yard (which actually was a whole world of Christmas Flashback, since that's what we used to do every year when I was a kid, get marched into the front yard and have our photo taken on Christmas Day).

I think we eventually got home around quarter to 11... to be honest I wasn't really paying that much attention to the time, but I know we were there for a while...

Then when we did get back, after we'd fired up the Weber and taken care of a few bits and pieces, it was time for The Orgy O' Presents... *cue maniacal laughter to fade*...

We actually managed a pretty good "you open one, I open one" thing for most it... although due to the fact that neither of us really tend to do the gift tag thing when it's for the other one, we did have a few instances where Ma gave me a present that was actually one of hers from her... and I had a bunch of stuff there that was to me from me... some of it I know is definitely from me or definitely from Ma, some of it, well let's just say it's from Santa...

my presents, 2008 styleLooking at the somewhat vast haul, I was thinking about the seeming vastness of it... and when you think about it, we probably starting putting things away for Christmas in about July... and rather than having a lot of it right then and there, I went for the delayed gratification of waiting until Christmas... because really, what would you rather do, have random stuff now or wait and have a massive Christmas... yes, me too...

Turns out that even counting some of the DVDs as one, rather than individual cases (same series, different cases), I've still passed last year's record... although some of them are new versions of stuff I already had (which have been or will be regifted)... Forty five cases... thirty seven items... thirty one new movies (which does bring it into line with previous years if I'm being honest)...

Excessive, maybe... fabulous, oh hell yes! So... running down the list...Unsurprisingly Ma loved everything I got her (which she should, because I have great taste, plus she deserved it all)... and also unsurprisingly I left The Mikado Box of A Thousand Layers until the very end...

What was a little surprising was that after she'd opened it and gotten all the way down to the tickets we both got a little choked up... awww bless... *rolls eyes*

Once we were finished with the unwrapping we had to start on the "tidying up"... we'd started out reasonably well, but we'd lost the plot somewhere along the way and there was tissue and paper and ribbon and boxes spread all under the table. Then I set about taking my usual Christmas Present Photos (of both my stuff and Ma's), which kind of involved taking the whole living room apart (or it felt like that anyway)... and Ma diddled around with the Weber and got stuff ready to cook (I'm not exactly sure whether the turkey went on earlier or what... I know I was there, but I forget).

Blah blah blah, lots of tidying up, getting stuff organised, watching one of the Video Hits DVDs, setting the table properly for lunch... And it was suddenly around 2:30 and time for turkey...

i told you it was a very red christmasI told you the theme for this year was red!

And because Ma had put the wrong bottle in the fridge to chill, even the bubbles were red/pink...

It's not as good a photo as previous years, but it's all very red. This is also the first time we've used a tablecloth at Christmas... and the big shock was that neither of us spilled anything on it.

The little wooden dude on my plate (there's one on Ma's plate too, but you can't see it) is also from Ikea... I tried them in about a dozen different spots before finally giving in and putting them on the plates...

Sadly, because there's so much going on with the plates (and they're bigger plates than we've had in the past), you can't really see the food in the background. We did pretty well actually... the turkey was LUSH, the sausage meat should have gone in the Weber earlier (we just cut the ends off and left it in there), and for the first time we tried roasting beetroot... again, they should have gone in earlier, but pretty successful overall.

As always happens though, we overindulged with the food so we didn't even have any dessert... not for a couple of hours anyway.

For about the third year running (it feels like that anyway) I got a pair of nail clippers in my cracker... not that you can ever have too many nail clippers, but still...

Once we could actually roll out of our seats, we tidied up (are you sensing a theme here... it seems to be "activity" followed by "tidied up") then sat down and watched Tales of Earthsea (not great, but not bad), had the Haighs truffles eventually, and a few of our own.

Then we watched St Trinian's, and about halfway through we stopped and went and made what must be the ultimate in Christmas sandwiches... turkey, cranberry, lettuce and tomato on leftover croissants...

After Trinian's it was starting to get late, so I packed up all my bits and pieces (and fortunately this year we didn't go through all the post Christmas insanity of the "food distribution" thing... Ma's going to bring stuff down later today for me) and toddled off home around 9:15 or so.

Now all we have to do is endure Second Christmas... I really, really don't want to be bothered, doubly so because the two anklebiters who I specifically bought presents for aren't even going to be there... and it's like an hour and a quarter's driving... BLAH!

Next year we need to organise something else... if the anklebiters and associated parentals aren't going to be there, then we're definitely not going (I would have encouraged Ma to pull out this year if we'd known ahead of time)... and if they are, well maybe we need to have them down to Ma's place or something. I know I'll be fine once I get there... it's the actual getting there and getting back that is going to shit me to tears... plus I'm going to have to drive again, since I have the aircon and the CD player... stoopid tenuously connected relatives who choose to live in fucking whoopwhoop...

But at least yesterday was good...

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