newfromnow

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Since my last post I've been thinking of Christmas ... a lot! Having come from the Northern hemisphere I am still struggling with the blazing hot Decembers. Even after 5 years in this new homeland I miss the cold December nights, the early nightfall ( as early as 4.30pm), the snow, and general cosiness that comes with rugging up and sitting by a fireplace... even if that means central heating... My parents old house had a roaring log burner, invariably stoked up too high by my ever obliging dad, forcing us to sit in singlets unwrapping presents on Christmas morning! Nothing much has changed really.

Except now, we sit in singlets on the veranda, overlooking the city of Brisbane, where we'll be this year.

One thing we have adopted from home is the Kris Kringle presents giving for the adults. Rather than spending a fortune on presents people don't really need, we now have a budget, we each spend $50 on 2 presents, which we wrap up and attach a poem to, filled with clues (often misleading and hilarious) about the present inside. All presents get put in the center of the table, and with a list of instructions to accompany the dice ( one means lose a present to the person on the right of you, two means swap presents wit ha person of your choice etc etc) we roll the dice and over several rounds, people win AND lose presents, read the poems ( where some presents gain more favor than others) and eventually open the presents, and not until the very end do people get to keep them. I remember one particular year, nan's red crock pot was the hot ticket item, with several family members forming secret alliances in order to secure it. OH yes, it's all about strategy.

The great thing for me is that it isn't really about the presents at all, but more about the time spent with your family. Our game usually lasts several hours, at the end of which we are full of food and drink and merriment.

Below see some items on my hot ticket list for this year: