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Christmas and out the other side...
Dec. 26th, 2001 10:02 pmI was saying to my mum as we was doing the dishes after Christmas lunch (she was drying, since I hate drying) that in our family, we don't have many traditions, on account of us being so mobile and so un-materialistic - moving house every year means you tend to have regular purges of so called "junk". But for Christmas, we have a couple.
The first is the one where mum and dad always leave the putting of the star on the top of the tree to us kids; either my brother or myself, or both. This year David is in Western Australia, so it was up to me. Even if it's not until Christmas Eve that one of us is there, they always wait. :)
The second is that mum and I always watch "Carols By Candlelight" on Christmas Eve, singing along to our hearts' content. We began in the bar this year, but an unseasonal cool change forced us inside when we couldn't feel our extremities and the cold was biting through the alcohol haze. We figured out that in twenty-five years of Carols, we've been watching it for at least twenty.
The third tradition is the opening of gifts Christmas morning. It used to be we'd open our presents and then have a cooked breakfast of mum's special scrambled eggs and ham and toast and champagne and orange juice, but we've found we can't manage lunch if we do that, so now it's just toast. *grins* Small gifts this year - a book for mum, darts for dad. I got a saucepan/steamer set, since BRM owns the ones we have, and a pair of shorts and a tank top. I remember as a kid I used to hate getting clothes, because that was one less toy in the parcels awaiting me, but now I relish them - I hate clothes shopping that much.
The forth tradition is a new one, the seafood lunch. This year, it having cooled down from last week, we had it outside on the patio, and weren't swarmed by flies. Seafood and fish are the only meat-y things I'll eat these days, by necessity (they're full of good things I can't get from veggies without mucking around a lot more than I do with my diet) and by choice (I love them too much to give them up). Prawns and mussels and oysters and an ocean trout so big and so tender it needed three of us to lift it off the BBQ without it falling apart and salad and bread and a very passable white wine from Greg Duncan's Hamper O' Plenty. Needless to say I'll be straight vegetarian for the next couple of months - I've done my limit in one day. Little wonder I fell asleep later for an hour or two before the rest of the relatives showed up. We'd visited my grandparents earlier in the day to give them their gifts - from me a tin of bikkies from the Hamper and a 'gift voucher' entitling them to a dinner for two at "Chez Howard" *grins* - but they and two of my mother's sisters and their partners came later. I really like Leanne's new beau, Phil - and yes, he reminds me a lot of the ficcer Phil, shaved head and all, only this Phil palys Aussie Rules - and he has good taste in red wine. Between him, me and Dad, we polished off three bottles by the end of the night.
We called my brother, and he sounds good, although he says I sound like Leanne now, my accent's going so country. He was at an 'orphan's party' held by a New Zealand Maori family over there in Kalgoorlie, and happily buzzed by the time we got to him. He's gotten another part-time job driving, fuel road trains this time, four fuel tankers per truck, and he's hoping it will lead onto something more permanent. It's money coming in, at least. This was the first Christmas he'd spent away, and he said it was kind of strange.
So, a pleasant Yule overall, ignoring the fit of... something-or-other fuelled by red wine later on in the night. I had a bit of a crying jag, talking with Phil and Dad and Leanne about Stuff. Didn't mean to, felt like a right idiot later. *sighs* Damn Attack Angst - it lies in wait until I think I'm doing well and then leaps out to turn me into Tomato Woman. Today was subdued, as a result. Not hungover, at least not from drinking - red wine never leaves me hungover, not if it's good stuff - more emotionally hungover, the flat feeling you get after an outburst. So I chose not to drink at the Wodonga Boxing Day Races today and offered my services as designated driver instead.
The races were okay, apart from the crappy weather. Rain and a biting cold wind. Stuff more useful a few hundred km north, where Sydney is afire. Or even further, to Brisbane, where it's low forties and humid. *wilts* I'm going to die if it's still like that up there this weekend. Heat I can handle, but humidity kills me. I won a little money, lost a little bit more - Dad gave me twenty as 'taxi services' knowing I'm flat broke until tomorrow, and drove home. I was fine until Mum and Dad started telling me to relax. *wry grin* They let me borrow the car to get my stuff home - Christmas presents accumulated - and I'm dropping it off tomorrow on the way to work.
Yes, work. Two days, and then another week off, before going back on Friday the 4th. I'm hoping it will be quiet, although the domestic we saw in the carpark of the racegrounds doesn't bode well.
***
BRM gave me a CD for Christmas - Dust On My Shoes by Mich Thomas and the Sure Thing. Mick used to be front man for Weddings Parties Anything before they split, so it's always a sure bet I'll like it (I'll save you from the obvious pun there). There's some really good songs, and I'll leave you with the last verse of one called "As Far As The Eye Can See."
"I'm driving down a road called Sweet Sorrow, I saw a sign post say No Turning Back.
I passed through a township called Think Of Tomorrow, I'm just an accessory after the fact.
Now the sun it beats down on a landscape pale yellow, It's just like a landscape inside of me.
As far as the eye can see, as far as the eye can see, as far as the eye, I can see."
Take care, all.
The first is the one where mum and dad always leave the putting of the star on the top of the tree to us kids; either my brother or myself, or both. This year David is in Western Australia, so it was up to me. Even if it's not until Christmas Eve that one of us is there, they always wait. :)
The second is that mum and I always watch "Carols By Candlelight" on Christmas Eve, singing along to our hearts' content. We began in the bar this year, but an unseasonal cool change forced us inside when we couldn't feel our extremities and the cold was biting through the alcohol haze. We figured out that in twenty-five years of Carols, we've been watching it for at least twenty.
The third tradition is the opening of gifts Christmas morning. It used to be we'd open our presents and then have a cooked breakfast of mum's special scrambled eggs and ham and toast and champagne and orange juice, but we've found we can't manage lunch if we do that, so now it's just toast. *grins* Small gifts this year - a book for mum, darts for dad. I got a saucepan/steamer set, since BRM owns the ones we have, and a pair of shorts and a tank top. I remember as a kid I used to hate getting clothes, because that was one less toy in the parcels awaiting me, but now I relish them - I hate clothes shopping that much.
The forth tradition is a new one, the seafood lunch. This year, it having cooled down from last week, we had it outside on the patio, and weren't swarmed by flies. Seafood and fish are the only meat-y things I'll eat these days, by necessity (they're full of good things I can't get from veggies without mucking around a lot more than I do with my diet) and by choice (I love them too much to give them up). Prawns and mussels and oysters and an ocean trout so big and so tender it needed three of us to lift it off the BBQ without it falling apart and salad and bread and a very passable white wine from Greg Duncan's Hamper O' Plenty. Needless to say I'll be straight vegetarian for the next couple of months - I've done my limit in one day. Little wonder I fell asleep later for an hour or two before the rest of the relatives showed up. We'd visited my grandparents earlier in the day to give them their gifts - from me a tin of bikkies from the Hamper and a 'gift voucher' entitling them to a dinner for two at "Chez Howard" *grins* - but they and two of my mother's sisters and their partners came later. I really like Leanne's new beau, Phil - and yes, he reminds me a lot of the ficcer Phil, shaved head and all, only this Phil palys Aussie Rules - and he has good taste in red wine. Between him, me and Dad, we polished off three bottles by the end of the night.
We called my brother, and he sounds good, although he says I sound like Leanne now, my accent's going so country. He was at an 'orphan's party' held by a New Zealand Maori family over there in Kalgoorlie, and happily buzzed by the time we got to him. He's gotten another part-time job driving, fuel road trains this time, four fuel tankers per truck, and he's hoping it will lead onto something more permanent. It's money coming in, at least. This was the first Christmas he'd spent away, and he said it was kind of strange.
So, a pleasant Yule overall, ignoring the fit of... something-or-other fuelled by red wine later on in the night. I had a bit of a crying jag, talking with Phil and Dad and Leanne about Stuff. Didn't mean to, felt like a right idiot later. *sighs* Damn Attack Angst - it lies in wait until I think I'm doing well and then leaps out to turn me into Tomato Woman. Today was subdued, as a result. Not hungover, at least not from drinking - red wine never leaves me hungover, not if it's good stuff - more emotionally hungover, the flat feeling you get after an outburst. So I chose not to drink at the Wodonga Boxing Day Races today and offered my services as designated driver instead.
The races were okay, apart from the crappy weather. Rain and a biting cold wind. Stuff more useful a few hundred km north, where Sydney is afire. Or even further, to Brisbane, where it's low forties and humid. *wilts* I'm going to die if it's still like that up there this weekend. Heat I can handle, but humidity kills me. I won a little money, lost a little bit more - Dad gave me twenty as 'taxi services' knowing I'm flat broke until tomorrow, and drove home. I was fine until Mum and Dad started telling me to relax. *wry grin* They let me borrow the car to get my stuff home - Christmas presents accumulated - and I'm dropping it off tomorrow on the way to work.
Yes, work. Two days, and then another week off, before going back on Friday the 4th. I'm hoping it will be quiet, although the domestic we saw in the carpark of the racegrounds doesn't bode well.
***
BRM gave me a CD for Christmas - Dust On My Shoes by Mich Thomas and the Sure Thing. Mick used to be front man for Weddings Parties Anything before they split, so it's always a sure bet I'll like it (I'll save you from the obvious pun there). There's some really good songs, and I'll leave you with the last verse of one called "As Far As The Eye Can See."
"I'm driving down a road called Sweet Sorrow, I saw a sign post say No Turning Back.
I passed through a township called Think Of Tomorrow, I'm just an accessory after the fact.
Now the sun it beats down on a landscape pale yellow, It's just like a landscape inside of me.
As far as the eye can see, as far as the eye can see, as far as the eye, I can see."
Take care, all.
