Christmas is coming
….did you bring your coat?
So, my presents are mostly wrapped and under the tree. However the tree fell down today, so I have to redecorate it. But first Lee will try and make it a little more secure.
I am waiting for one more internet shopping parcel to be delivered. It has a few gifts in it, so fingers crossed it arrives soon!
Yesterday I did many of my Christmas cards and made two lots of chocolates to gift to people. Next up: making up some more gingerbread so I can assemble some gifty bags of noms for the people I won’t see next week.
Check it:
Christmas tree, Frank Kitts Park
Last night after a wicked awesome roller derby, I went to Frank Kitts Park to check out the Telecom Christmas tree. I’d seen it during the day and wondered about it. To put it simply, it’s amazing and you have to check it out.
It’s all strings of lights with a big atom thingy on top. The lights cycle through various colours and there are cushions set up underneath it so you can lie back and experience the tree from within. There are also phone booths set up connected to the tree where you can call Santa and leave a message with your Christmas wish. When someone does that, the tree gets extra colourful and the atom on top gets awesome.
Sitting underneath it, I felt a little bit like my ship had gone into hyperspace. It was awesomely pretty and I highly recommend it.
Things I Love Thursday
Tough list today, I didn’t sleep right last night and have had a bit of a grumpy day. Which is, of course, the best possible time and way to write a TiLT list.
- Toasted sandwiches. Salami, mushroom and cheese on molenberg, left in the press until the outside is a medium brown for optimum crunch. Nom.
- Christmas is coming, and you might notice that my blog is a bit more festive….It’s snowing! Yay for wordpress. Anyway, I started my Christmas baking and made a tray and a half of gingerbread. It was really, really yummy and I ate almost all of it. Nom. I have plans and crafts and stuff, I’m quite excited really.
- Going to Craft 2.0 I got Lee to come, and we picked up a couple of Christmas present, and it was nice. I like meeting the crafters, I like seeing the pretties, and I like to see if there’s stuff there I could make myself.
- Matt’s worked his lulu-esque magic and over on his blog you can download a pdf of The Event for free. It’s all prettied up and has photos in it, some of them by me!
- Tim Jones interviewed Sally! Check it out, awesome.
Honourable Mentions: Free beer! Making things, writing, my PJ shorts, new TV, stuff that gets delivered to me at work, my darling friends, fun stuff to do on the weekend, pepper spray and the movie of the The Time Traveller’s Wife.
(ETA, I just realised I never explained this video. I am totally obsessed with Spring Awakening since Sophie gave me the soundtrack. I am really into this song ‘Don’t do sadness’. The events around the song are pretty sad, but I love love love the song and Lee has had to listen to me singing it all week. The counterpart ‘Blue wind’ is also quite lovely. Now, to find a production of Spring Awakening who will cast me as Moritz…..)
Please share your own TiLT list below.
Preparing for Christmas
OK, I freaking love Christmas.
I know its early, but I’m starting to think about my planning. In fact, I’m not just starting to think about it. I’m blogging about it here so that you can bask in the Christmas organisation-ness of me.
Christmas Day: Not sure what I’ll need to prepare. We’re only doing the half the usual Christmas celebrations on the actual day this year, so I won’t have to do as much as normal. To be decided closer to the time.
Christmas Eve: I’m having my regular Christmas Eve get together. Last year I baked too many sweet delicious things and people got sugar crashes. This year I shall still do baking but I shall also provide savoury and healthful snacks like celery, carrots, hummus, cheese, etc.
Need to let people know about the get together, buy groceries closer to the time, etc.
Baking I need to do before then: Lebkuchen - I can make the dough pretty early and keep it in the fridge. I have some new cookie cutters from a Trade Me purchase as well: a selection of dinosaurs and a ‘family’ of people shapes.
I think I will make some of those chocolates I made last year for gifts as well as these Cake pops I found. I’m probably going to do what she says and use a packet cake mix as well, which seems like a cop out until I think about all the time I’ll be putting in mixing the crumbs up with the stuff and then making it into balls and then chocolate dipping them…yeah, it’ll be fine.
What else? Shall I make cheese scones? Little apple pies? I dunno. But I should maybe bake something else as well.
Presents: I have been very good this year and I have picked up a number of Christmas presents already. I will need to sit down and look at them and work out who they are for and then I will make a list of the people I still have to shop for. And let’s face it, if I’m already doing all that I might as well gift wrap them at the same time, and I might as well put up my Christmas tree. I am allowed to put up my Christmas tree this early because Dan put his up on Saturday.
Now, I have a question for you. The past couple of years I’ve run an advent calendar on my livejournal. I am going to do it again this year, but I was wondering about doing it on here instead of lj. What is your opinion on where I house the pretty pictures?
Finally, I must not forget that I discovered how to have Christmas and not eat myself sick. I refer of course to…The Secret to not over eating. Feel free to use my knowledge and learning for your own not overeating benefit.
A glut of materialism
Christmas presents were pretty awesome this year, plus boxing day sales goodness. I am metaphorically rolling around in the excess of newness.
Awesome presents included: Fraggles board game, which I totally had as a child and didn’t remember until I saw the playing pieces. (Thanks Steve!) Chocolates, dried strawberries, neat designer notepad and magnets and lots of Lush stuff. Mmmmm Lush.
New DVDs acquired: House season 4, because we loves the House and the Wilson and the Chase. Well, I do. Lee loves Cameron ;p
Veronica Mars season 2. So so good. Lee’s little brother finally got around to watching season 1 so this was immediately lent to him so he can get up to date on it. I love season 2 because it has some wicked awesome Logan stuff. Ah Logan…
I know I already mentioned The Planet Earth but I thought I should point out why I am so happy with this. Nature documentaries are love, I mean, cute baby animals, silly birds doing mating dances, pretty landscapes and footage of predators doing their thing….it’s all pretty breathtaking. I also look on this series a little bit as an entire encyclopedia of wildlife and also a snapshot of how the world is. For all I know the Earth won’t resemble this at all in thirty years so…
The boxing day sales yielded The Little Mermaid, Gossip Girl season one, Dirty Sexy Money and a film called Valley of Gwangi about cowboys who wrangle dinosaurs instead of cows. Oh yeah.
Lee bought a digital Trivial Pursuit game with his Christmas vouchers and is busily downloading questions to it now. Should be fun?
PoF: Layers, it’s colder than it looks outside
CO: should I move to a more customisable, less finicky blog provider? One that won’t eat people’s comments? One with better image functionality? Is blogspot any good?
Christmas – the secret to not overeating
I didn’t overeat this year on Christmas Day. I overate on Christmas Eve. I’ve found the secret to the stomach bloat of the holidays! It’s the snacks.
On Christmas Eve I baked for three hours straight so that there would be plenty of cookies and cupcakes for people. Then I ate a whole lot of them, chips and dip, chocolates, brownies, nuts…..when it came to dinner time I wanted dinner because I knew that I *should* have real food but I wasn’t really that hungry. And I felt pretty ill later in the evening.
On Christmas Day I skipped breakfast, only having a Lindor hazelnut chocolate truflle (nom!) and some cherries and strawberries when we got to my sister’s. This meant that when it came time to sit down for all the delicious lunch food I was hungry and could eat a little of everything. Pacing myself meant I didn’t gorge from excitement at the choices and I was even able to have seconds of those things I enjoyed the most. (Ham, green salad, pasta salad, potato and egg salad).
Unluckily we had to go from my sister’s before I got to eat brandy snaps, but then it was on to Lee’s parents place where they had put out chippies and pistachios. Tempting! Too tempting, I had some chips. But only a couple. I was strong. I was steadfast. I ate two of the Roses chocolates that we were given and they were *awesome*!
Then at dinner I was careful to only take portions of the things that I really wanted (turkey, crayfish, green salad, bread, potato and bacon salad) and it was delicious! Even though I wanted to I refrained from having seconds, except for some scrappits of cray meat because I had seen the homemade chocolate eclairs for dessert! Nom! I had seconds of dessert. Besides the eclairs Lee’s sister had made warm, squooshy brownie and I had a pile of fresh berries and cherries as well.
My lebkuchen with lemon icing went down very well and I gave my father in law a tupperware full of afghans. If he gets diabetes it will totally be my fault.
So, that’s what I’ve learned and what I ate. Hopefully it will be of some use to you at the next gorge-yourself-gathering you go to.
Now tell me, what delicious things did you eat this holiday season?
PoF: robey
CO: boxing day sales!!!!!!
Christmas
A very merry Christmas to all of my gentle readers. And the not-so-gentle ones too 
Is it gauche to wear my personalised Mickey Mouse ears to Christmas family gatherings? I already wore them on Christmas Eve with all my friends. Maybe if I wear them long enough everyone will forget that they’re *not part of my body*.
I got the full Planet Earth BBC series on DVD from my beloved. I know what I’m going to be doing for the next seven days!
To Do List updated and chocolate angst
* Grocery shopping for more chocolate melts, gladware, lemon, orange, candy canes. While out also go to Gordon Harris for more silver sparkly fabric paint, as ‘Team Edward’ shirts are popular and I’ve now run out.
* Make chocolates**** See below., cookies (Lebkuchen dough made yesterday, bake it up tomorrow.) Afghans, spice crisps.
* Finish Giffy’s Christmas present. Eh, near enough.
* Take photo of self in surgerised t-shirts for putting on Trade Me
* Scrub down bathroom….funsies.
* Figure out what to wear on Christmas day.
So yesterday I made a batch of delicious chocolates from the Mindfood magazine where you just blender a packet of digestives, add orange juice and ground almonds and melted chocolate, form balls out of the stuff, fridge them and then cover them in chocolate. These are superb. Then I made a batch of oreo truffles and I guess I was high from my earlier success, but I used a whole tub of cream cheese with the packet of oreos and the mixture tasted very much like….cream cheese. I covered ‘em with chocolate anyway because maybe the chocolate will offset the cream cheese right?
But then I was too scared to try one in case they’re awful. I gave one to Lee who said “very rich!” and then “I like the other ones more” and then when I asked if it was too much cream cheese he said ominously “You can definitely tell there’s cream cheese in them.”
I’m trying to figure out what to do with them now. People like chocolate and oreos and cream cheese. Maybe I should advertise them as cream cheese truffles? I am in agony of indecision. I kind of just want to bin them all and make another batch of digestive chocolates but it is such a waste to throw them out and that seems Wrong and Bad. Any suggestions from blogland?
PoF: Batgirl
CO: seeing Giffy and E this afternoon!
To Do List:
For today and tomorrow, but the more I can get done fast the more time I’ll have to chill/watch DVDs Lee doesn’t like/get writing done.
- Grocery shopping for more chocolate melts, gladware, lemon, orange, candy canes. While out also go to Gordon Harris for more silver sparkly fabric paint, as ‘Team Edward’ shirts are popular and I’ve now run out.
- Make chocolates, cookies (Lebkuchen dough made yesterday, bake it up tomorrow.) Afghans, spice crisps.
- Finish Giffy’s Christmas present.
- Take photo of self in sugerised t-shirts for putting on Trade Me
- Scrub down bathroom….funsies.
- Figure out what to wear on Christmas day.
Sure I’ve forgotten something in there….
Now, to get dressed!
PoF: robe
CO: eggs
Break from Rock Starring
I got a letter back from parliament. It pretty much said, ‘thanks for writing, we’ve passed it to the Climate Change Issues Minister’. So, potentially it’s been read by someone in John’s office and someone in the Climate Change Minister’s office. How exciting.
My mission to get my Christmas shopping done has been a success, barring a $10 gift for a work party and random people I may have forgotten I am done. I feel good having got it all out of the way, now I can concentrate on awesome Christmas crafts and baking!
I’ve been keeping on keeping on re-drafting Kiki, not really any news there. Will go hard tonight and tomorrow afternoon, try and get it finished. I’ve been finding lots of places to insert more dialogue, so I’ve been working at that (dialogue is more interesting after all) and I find that dialogue is easy to put jokes into. Hopefully they are jokes that are funny.
I’ve also been having fun entering the competitions on iCiNG’s 13 days of Christmas. Trying to think of dodgy stuff for name plate necklaces and who exactly, is my hair inspiration is kind of fun.
Copyblogger delivers: Inigo Montoya’s guide to commonly misused words is valuable reading, although a bit American English centric.
I learn separately through Hix and Cleolinda that Fables has been taken up by ABC and they have confirmed they are making a pilot. Also, volume 11 seems to be out. To the bookstores, as fast as lightning!
An added functionality on Rock Band 2 is the ability to make playlists when you’re playing on your own or with friends in quickplay mode. I did the best ever rock concert performance this evening once Lee went out. My setlist was: The Kill, You Oughta Know, One Way or Another, Livin’ on a Prayer and More than a Feeling. I followed up with some Chillis for good measure. It was amazing, if I do say so myself.
PoF: grey jeans returneth
CO: anything but work on my manuscript!
