Saturday, December 9, 2006

Dear santa, please get me some more vodka from the fridge . . .

Today I went stationery shopping! I know it is sad, but I LOVE stationery megastores like Officeworks. Mr Womble often jokes that I'm going back to study so that I have a legitimate excuse to buy more stationery. I think he's jealous. (Just kidding, Mr Womble!)

On another freaky note, it is only two more weeks until Christmas. At our family get-together every year there tend to be two distinct groups of people. Being a southern-hemisphere Christmas, it tends to be DREADFULLY hot, particularly at the main celebration on Christmas day. One group get thoroughly happy by about lunch-time, spend all day jumping in and out of the pool so that we don't melt, drinking, eating and having fun. I generally make a Christmas cake that is so rum-laden that it can be classified as drinking AND eating simultaneously.

I also do a LOT of drunken text-messaging on Christmas day. (Being vegan I tend to disappear around about the time people start beheading prawns. The smell gets me more than anything. Plus when I'm drunk I'm likely to start adding sound effects. "Where's my mummy? I'm scared! It's so dark in here! Ow! Ow! Ow!" Before anybody gets offended, I'll just add that it goes both ways - I get asked whether I'm worried about the carrots being in pain when I eat them because "plants have feelings, too" (no, I'm not worried, I hate the damn carrots and eat them slowly to cause them extra pain) and I get to tell stories of how when I was a child my family killed and ate my pet chicken. But we all have fun, and nobody takes it too seriously. We're all used to each other's quirks by now.)

The other group seem to spend the whole day sitting in chairs in the shade, looking miserable and asking when lunch is going to be served, or sitting inside and watching the television. My Dad took a picture of them last year. There was a row of flustered, red-faced, miserable people of all ages sitting around a table next to each other. At that point in time, all of the fun people were in the pool (or near their mobile phones). If I did the Christmas card thing, I would make this picture the cover for my cards. It was a great photo of The Dark Side of Christmas.

Ok, so I am being a little narky at these people who choose to spend their Christmas day with all of us. And it IS nice to have them there. Even when somebody starts telling creepy and inappropriate stories of his last business trip that I won't go into here. Family is family.

Thank god, this year more FUN people may be turning up, from the other "happy drunk" side of the family (as opposed to the car-stealing side). The great part about my genetics is that there seems to be a "happy drunk" gene firmly implanted in the x-chromosome, and everybody on that side shares it. So bring on more of the happy drunks!

We've also tried to agree on a sensible Christmas present year this year. There is nothing worse than a room full of people spending hundreds on presents for other people that they don't necessarily want. And yes, I'm easy to buy for, even cheaply. Just give me some stationery and I'll be a happy girl!

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