Christmas backtrack
Tuesday, 04 January, 2005
It's great to see Greg's work in the SMH:
If only I could draw, there's a Christmas card I've always wanted to design. It features a Ned Flanders-esque family standing at someone's open front door, jauntily belting out “Deck the Halls” while the neighbour to whom they are inescapably bringing this Christmas cheer charges at them, fists raised, ready to, well, deck them.
And in front of the family is their home-made sign: The Hall Family Singers.
Greg Clarke, “As we celebrate, let's not forget those on the darker side”, 24 December 2004
I always find Christmas a bit stressful and surreal but I do enjoy parts of it. Following tradition, we got together with Ben's father's relatives on Christmas Eve for dinner and present-opening. They had really good crackers—the kind that have useful things in them, like mini decks of cards, screwdriver sets and photo frames. One of Ben's cousins got married during NTE so it was the first time we had seen them as a married couple. On Christmas Day, Ben and I went to the Beilharzs to open presents (which took less time this year—normally present-opening is a big production: everyone takes turns to give out their presents and then we all watch each other open them individually so we can see what each other got. Cathy and Ros are true gift people [as in The Five Love Languages]; it's not just about them receiving presents but giving them as well and getting excited about how the person is going to react). The tone of the morning was set with Ben's parents giving him one of those reindeers that poops jellybeans (Ben later said they were the tastiest jellybeans he'd ever had).
Then Ben and I went to my mother's for lunch where Peter, as usual, had made turkey (complete with cranberry sauce, stuffing and gravy but no Yorkshire pudding this year). My brother had to work so he wasn't there and my Aunty Mary was embarrassed about her skin problems so didn't come either.
My mum has been doing her Masters in Fine Arts (thus fulfilling her life-long dream of becoming an artist). She's really interested in the theme of “surveillance” so, for one of her first artworks on the theme, she got these surveillance pictures from Australian detention centres and screen printed them onto canvas. She also did a series of digital prints that look like x-rays of luggage going through an airport scanner (she gave me a copy of the seventh one for Christmas). Anyways, recently she got really into the idea of leaving “suspicious luggage” around on campus, seeing what people do with them and getting the CCTV tapes. Unfortunately there are legal problems with doing that sort of thing so she can't do it. But she is using the suspicious luggage concept in other ways and that is why she wrapped all our Christmas presents in bubble wrap, brown paper and string.
When we arrived, she got me and Ben to transport all the packages to the front hall and she asked Ben to take photos of them with her digital camera in various configurations. After lunch, we unwrapped them and she took photos of us doing it (Peter complained terribly throughout the entire process) and then finally I took all the discarded bubble wrap, brown paper and string back to the front hall and took pictures of them in various configurations.
In the evening we went to my stepsister's place for a barbecue dinner. Ben was preaching on Boxing Day and still hadn't finished his talk so he left early but I stuck around for a while.
I shan't bore you with the details of what I got from other people (except to comment on the fact that, like Kathleen who is a fellow booklover, I disappointingly only received one book (The Magus [John Fowles] from Peter) and no book vouchers. (Yes, stop complaining, Karen!) But, in the spirit of giving, I thought I would record what I got everyone else (because I'll probably forget next year):
- Ben: Strongbad on DVD (yes, I capitulated) and a Dreamtheater CD;
- Hans: Java for Dummies and Ocean's Eleven (DVD);
- Cathy: Emma and The Princess Diaries on DVD;
- Tim: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (U2) and a U2 DVD;
- Ros: Lyra's Oxford (Phillip Pullman) and a Winnie the Pooh 2005 diary;
- Lizz: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on DVD, The Merlin Conspiracy (Diana Wynne Jones), a blank book and a box of stickers (including some of pigs because she likes pigs);
- My dad: Jaques Loussier plays Bach (my brother says to never buy my dad CDs but I'm running out of ideas here ... why are men so hard to buy presents for?);
- Helena: a necklace and matching earrings;
- My mum: Unity (George) and The Biographer's Tale (A.S. Byatt);
- Peter: Sailing to Sarantium (Guy Gavriel Kay) and The Confusion (Neal Stephenson);
- Kenneth: One Love (New Edition).
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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hey what’s wrong with her skin?
Very bad eczema.