imagine christmas wishes shooting out of your eyes...

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Merry Christmas everyone! It's mine and Tim's first Christmas together in our five years of being-togetherness (which means a lot of clenched-toothedly muttering "this has to be the best Christmas ever", which is my way of trying to be funny, although the joke may have been so overplayed by me that it has become a serious, serious statement.)

Also for the first time in ages, I'm home a few days before Christmas. Tim and I flew up to Auckland on Tuesday afternoon for the Gorillaz concert, which was words-fail-me-ingly amazing, and the next day caught the train down to Manurewa to be picked up by Mum. The humidity has been intense but it's so nice to be home. It's fun introducing Tim to all our Christmas traditions - the Tin Lids and Disney Favourites cassettes from the late 80s/early 90s which have magically not warped after all these years, the increasingly frantic, late-night cooking marathons, the great-grandmother's plates which can't be put in the dishwasher but need to be used, the increasingly terse, late-night cleaning sessions...although admittedly last night's was fun, an attempt to clean the kitchen turned into us cleaning out all the near-empty bottles of liqueur in the alcohol cupboard. I prefer a dry drink but there's nothing like a sherry glass of ancient butterscotch schnapps at 11pm when you're supposed to be stacking pots and pans. (And avoiding "wipe down kitchen ceiling" which was actually a task on Mum's to-do list.)

It's also fun seeing the cats again. I miss them heaps during the year. I always end up taking heaps of photos of them.





Roger and Rupert. These photos were taken within seconds of each other. I'm not sure if they just love sleeping on cars or if they planned to do it simultaneously to be funny. Either way, their continued indifference cannot stifle my love for them.

Of course, one of the things I love most about Christmas is cooking food. This year I'm having a go at Nigella's Chocolate Spice Cake, and I'm introducing her Cornbread and Cranberry Stuffing to the feast too. Tomorrow we're having family round for lunch and then heading out to dinner with the extended family, the same way we do every year. It'll be a smallish Christmas day with the whanau this time - some are overseas and available on Skype only, some have other places to be, some just aren't with us anymore but continue to have presence in our minds. Either way it will be awesome, and despite the lack of sleep and the humidity I've loved all the cooking that's gone on and can't wait to spend time with everyone.

Finally:



Some people have a Christmas angel, my parents have Enoch the skeleton to herald glad tidings to all.

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Title via: 30 Rock's Tracy Jordan...
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Next time: Hope that whatever you celebrate (or don't) that you have a fantastic day on the 25th. Probably won't get another blog post done till the new year so cheers to all you readers for a fantastic 2010. Stay safe and happy and mellow.