Poor Stevie

I pretty much write the same blog post each year around Christmas time. I’m thinking about getting ‘I (heart) Christmas’ tattooed on my forehead.

But just now I was out on my deck, eating fish in a box and a bowl of salad, looking up at the gum trees and trying to pinpoint exactly what it is I like about the festive season. Sure, there’s the presents and the candy canes and the pancakes and the bacon and the chocolate and the afternoon nap and the seafood and the dinner and the wine and the presents and the tree and the stockings and the cute kids and the bon bons and the spicy nuts and the carols and the classic movies and the excitement of Christmas Eve and the awesome teevee specials and the holidays and the twinkly lights and the cicadas and the jokes and the conversations and the presents.

All of that is amazing.

But I think what I really love about Christmas is giving. I know, gag. Send me to the Oprah show because sisters, I believe in the gift of giving. I just really, really get a kick out of getting people things they really want, or really like or that will remind them of something they used to have or that’s just plain old kick ass. Even if the receiver opens up my gift and gives a weak smile before thanking me – like the year I gave my Dad a framed, signed picture of myself – it’s still satisfying to know I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about someone else.

For real, that’s what I love about it. That for a whole bunch of days and weeks before Christmas, I’m thinking about other people. I’m finally distracted from all my stupid thoughts about myself like, “Oh my God, why is that woman staring at me. I applied my dark eye shadow as blush didn’t I?”, or “I can’t believe I just bid farewell to a bunch of female colleagues by saying ‘bye guys!’, because they’re definitely not guys”, or “Man, I love this song. I wonder what my biceps would look like if I was a drummer”, or “Hmm, that was a weird feeling in my stomach. I wonder if I have a tape worm. Hey, I heard you could lure those out with milk. Just like Santa Claus!” God, it gets boring hanging out with myself.

Anyway here’s some things I’ve been doing in this beautiful month of December:

Ah, the infamous stick tree! Joel and I decided we’re going to keep up the tradition of decorating sticks for the rest of our lives. We figured stick hunting would be seriously cool for any future pugs/kids we have. And here’s a tip: the best sticks are always found near the Hare Krishna building.

Here’s a nice addition to our tree, thanks to Jillberry – the one who passed on the Christmas spirit to me. She who once saw an NRMA truck during a drive to look at houses decked out with lights and squealed: “Ooooh, twinkly lights”.

Here’s our calendar and our advent calendar. We’ve had a few misADVENTures (clever!) this year. Including opening 13 instead of 3. It almost ruined Christmas. Almost.

Here’s my wrapping this year. I’m using newspaper, pretty ribbon and tags made from old Christmas cards. I made sure I used last weekend’s Spectrum rather than the news pages, so the receiver will be reading delightful fashion tips rather than about a circumcision that went terribly wrong in New Zealand.

Gah! I’m so excited. What I also like about the festive season is the whole idea of the new year unfolding in front of you. I’m into broad new years resolutions and for 2010 mine are: try harder and know more.

Now that I’m a member of the beige, frowning army of lemmings known as the employed, I pine for my university days. I think I made the most of them – I drank enough beer to cultivate my own little wobbly gut, I met my beloved man friend, I learnt things, I slept more than I care to say. I also once let off fireworks in a paddock behind my dormitory before painting my face army-style and carrying a giant log around campus just because I could. I remember the sheer relief I felt every Sunday afternoon upon finishing work behind a checkout. Yep, my working “week” was over and there was nothing ahead of me except five days of blue skies, half-burnt Sargent’s Pies and trivia Tuesdays. Dudes, that was the shiz.

A couple of weeks ago, a few friends and I decided to return to the scene of several crimes, but this time do it in style. Without a student budget the possibilities were endless. Bottles of wine! Sirloin steaks! Clean underpants! Warm jackets! Cocktails! Antiques shopping! Buying narcotics from teenage mums!

So here’s a little trip down memory lane:

This is the fringe and eyes of my friend Tegan as she drove out of our driveway and onto the freeway of…freedom. It should be noted that not only is Tegan incredibly stylish and smart but she’s a kick-ass driver. Which is a relief because even I get sick of driving with me and my white knuckles.

One of the first things we wanted to see when we arrived was the street I remembered as being action-packed. Everything that happened happened right here. Clearly I was so focussed on getting to the amazing French patisserie down the end of the road that I didn’t realise I was living in a city abandoned in the year 80BC.

I found this graffiti a little ironic. Because in my experience of ghetto life, those who draw devils on public property are unlikely to be in school themselves. Alanis Morrisette was going to include that insight in her hit song but it didn’t quite fit.

After exploring the town we had our long-awaited Sirloin steaks at a classy restaurant we could only dream about as students. As it turned out the waiter was distracted, my steak was over-cooked and there was nothing on the damned menu served with gold leaf.

Then, much to the joy of those in our company, the J-man and I wanted to revisit the seedy corner of a beer garden where we first kissed. It was exactly like it is in this picture, with him sitting daintily on my lap and me stealing his innocence right out from under him. It later emerged he made out with two other girls on the same fateful eve. Ah well, gotta take ‘em for a test drive.

Later we hit the dancefloor at a pub where the DJ clearly had no sense of fun. You do not, I repeat do not, put weird house beats clumsily over a perfectly dance-worthy Pink – sorry P!nk – song. This photo makes me smile because I spent two whole years mesmerised by my friend Bron’s ability to shake her bootay. For real, this girl can dance.

The next day, some of us having taken a puke for old time’s sake, we went up to uni to remember on-campus life with all its perverted dormies, gastro bugs, conjunctivitis and nudie runs. In true student style, tea bags were stuck on the wall next to us, obviously having been thrown in a moment of reckless spontaneity. Two of us had to wee and it was nice going in to the heated bathrooms with the familiar smear of post-adolescent boy poop stuck to the bowl. We did get caught by the residential advisor who, after some convincing, let us stay so we could relieve ourselves.

And, our final stop, the first student house I lived in. There are many tales to tell from the year I spent living here with my sister, her boyfriend my friend Liam. I’ll just give you snippets. Junkie fights across the road. Beer on the deck. Vines growing up the interior walls. Epic CD listening nights. Broken fridge. Halloween movie marathons. Mice plague. Treats from the corner store. Oven with dodgy thermostat. Over-the-top Jesus decorations.  Hallway for a bedroom. Village Fair champagne breakfast.

Take me home.

In Orange you rarely have to line up for anything except the dole and methylated spirits. Oh I’m too cynical – mostly it’s for clean syringes and bourbon.

Today I queued for nearly an hour to buy a Christmas present and even though it’s my second Christmas in Sydney, I knew what I was getting myself into by shopping on the last Thursday before Santa breaks into my house and drinks my boutique Japanese beers.

And holy feck, 99.9 per cent of people are whiners. One woman, about 46th in line, finally got to the counter and didn’t take her headphones out while she was served. And she only answered questions with a shake or nod of her head. And didn’t make eye contact when they gave her change and a receipt. Then when her moment of pure First World torture was finally over, she moped out of the shop like someone had just forced her to strip naked and top off the human pyramid in the corner while we all took photos.

Then some other feisty babe who dared to wear her sweaty gym leggings and headband in public demanded a terrified staff member named Connie TRAINEE to find her a particular product. So Connie TRAINEE, carrying boxes and answering inane questions from all angles, slinked off to the back room. This is a beautiful trick as a retail worker. People think there’s a magical back room with endless supplies of Barbie vans, the second season of Friends and that illusive carton of Winnie Blues. Get a clue – there’s nothing out the back except a dartboard with your face on it. So Connie TRAINEE emerged 30 seconds later with the news that no there was nothing out the back and no they were unlikely to get anything in before Christmas. Sweaty pants heard this, rolled her eyes and actually stamped her foot. Stamped. her. Nike. wearing. foot. Sheesh.

I hope the good lord audits the world soon, I really do.

Merry December 18 y’all.

I made easter birds nests:

They needed more chocolate but still think they’re going to taste good.

Otherwise, Easter without the long weekend, family, pets and farm fucking sucks.

This was my beach holiday timetable:

0700 – wake up
0730 – watch teevee
0745 – walk to beach for morning swim
0900 – eat breakfast
0915 – eat chocolate
0930 – go back to beach
1100 – start a game of trivial pursuit
1300 – eat lunch
1400 – go back to beach
1600 – open first beer. drink
1608 – open second beer. drink
1730 – watch west wing
2300 – go to bed

Here are some snaps to illustrate our lazy holiday:

Joel and I looking like we just found out we’re cousins and that I’m pregnant with a baby will gills.

There aren’t many photos of the actual beachy fun times because it rained most  of the time.  If there was photographic evidence of our time spent indoors it would be of me taking afternoon naps, Joel playing ping pong with his friends in the garage, us trying to keep the mud out of the house, Joel rescuing a puppy called Mikey on the beach, us hanging out at Erina Fair testing out Playstation 3, me eating a shitload of cake and us watching way way way too much West Wing. Yes!! 

I only wish I had a photo of the policeman who turned up at our small gathering after a call from a concerned neighbour, to find four boys quietly playing ping pong in the garage. That’s what I call a Kodak moment.

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!