Poor Stevie

Christmas in Orange is nothing compared to Christmas in Sydney. City slickers know how to do Christmas up right.

In Orange, shops have tinsel in their windows and Myer always has a lame-o window display. There is the main street Christmas party that I always used to like when I was a teenager because afterwards local bands would play and I always wanted to pash boys in bands.
People in Orange go pretty overboard decorating their houses with lights and we always used to drive around and have a look in the lead-up to Christmas.
My all-time favourite Christmas light-looking memory is when we were all driving along with mum and dad and up ahead there were some flashing lights on a car. And mum was all: “ooooooooohhhh, look girls, someone has decorated their car!”. It turned out to be an NRMA van.

But in Sydney it is so much classier. I was running some errands in the CBD today for work and saw the most amazing things.
I saw a million people – men in suits, women with children, children with children – wearing Santa hats.
There the same kinds of people crowded excitedly around the David Jones window displays, kind of squealing and giggling with festive glee.
Then there was this totally amazing guy outside St James playing a drum kit equipped with a huge rack of Toohey’s New bottles, which he played Jingle Bells on.
And then – and this is the clincher – I walked down Martin Place, past the swanky entrance to Macquarie Bank and saw a quartet of singers, dressed in red robes, singing Chritsmas carols.

Now that’s Christmas.

Merry December 18 everyone!

There seems to be a distinct lack of interest in Christmas in my family this year. So I feel it’s up to Stevie Claus to make it happen.

I will NOT let Christmas dissapear.

So this is what I’ve been doing:

Writing Christmas cards on beautiful festive stationery

Leaving presents for Joel to come home to

Looking at Christmas lights (admittedly this was just because we were walking through Martin Place on our way home from Homebake – also known as the place a hit Paul Kelly in the face with a pen).

This weekend Julia and I are going Christmas shopping. Woo!

Merry December 12 everybody

I was devastated when on December 1 I didn’t have an advent calender. Weeks before I had seen the one I wanted to buy in David Jones food hall – a shimmering red Lindt chocolate one. So I refused my mum’s offer to send me the regular ones she buys from the christian bookshop back home.

Yesterday I searched in Target to no avail – does that store actually sell anything of use!? – and then today I went to David Jones and of course they were all sold out.

Everywhere else only had horrible Bratz dolls calenders and I was this close to reluctantly buying one. It just wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t get to count down by opening a little door every day.

But, luckily my old friend Darrel Lea had some. They are cheesy, they are great.

The snob half of me (ok, three quarters) was all: “Don’t buy that, Darrel Lea chocolate sticks to the roof of your mouth like I imagine baby poo would, but of course I would never think about eating baby poo because I am your snob three-quarter”

But then another part of me (a quarter, if you will) was all: “This is what Christmas is about. There are some poor people out there who are forced to eat bad chocolate at Christmas because they can’t afford Lindt, you snob, I hope you choke”.

So here they are – stuck to our cupboards with gaffa tape.

Happy December 3 everyone!

Christmas in my family has always been super-duper special. The putting up of the tree is the beginning. Then there is the making of the rum balls, the creation of the christmas menu, the making of the big christmas morning breakfast, the hours of shopping, the stressing over what to get for dad, the wrapping of presents, the putting of the presents under the tree, the dragging of Mary out of the bed, the eating, the carolling and the ear bursting squealing.

It was my beloved moo-ma who passed on her christmas joy to of us. As little kids she used to write us long, detailed Santa letters in metallic pen and sometimes she would hang them from trees for us to find. We used to do all the fun stuff like leave carrots out for the reindeer and beer out for Santa. We’d wake up far too early on Christmas morning to find our Santa sacks filled to the brim. And that excitement has never really left me.

So this year, as my first Christmas in stinky old Sydney, I had to make it just as special. Joel is not really a huge Christmas person so I also wanted to show him what decking the halls is all about.

We went to Target to buy a tree, which these days cost around $150 which is craaazzzzeeeeeee. So we decided to buy some Christmas decorations, hunt down some sticks and decorate those instead.

Here is the result:

Check it out – real candy canes!!

Merry December 2nd everyone!