Some observations...

Dear Robina Shopping Centre Management,

After visiting your fine mega-shopping complex in order to complete my Christmas shopping, I would like to offer the following observations.

1. Thank you for installing the snazzy little parks assist light dealies in the new parking lot. It certainly does make life easier. Especially when you zoom 3 aisles over 'cos you see a green "vacant" light, only to find a freakin motorcycle (which evidently does not set off the switch to "occupied") parked there.

2. I fail to see how me moving said motorcycle to a handy unobstrusive spot can be wrong. Or how say, after 2 hours of looking for a park, pushing it off the 3rd level balcony would also be wrong.

3. Compliments on the renovations and expansion. I'm sure the new Myer store will be awesome. One does wonder however, at the intelligence of closing a large and popular parking lot during construction of said Myer store, just in time for the holiday season.

4. Speaking of questionable intelligence, where do you find your holiday casual retail staff? Is there a bank of them somewhere, kept locked away the rest of the year, allowed out only to renew and multiply their piercings, audition for reality tv shows and attend court dates?

5. Surely it can't be illiegal to run down the middle aged blonde, so totally absorbed in texting on her mobile that she hasn't looked up for 2 full minutes, and making a beeline straight for your fully laden shopping trolley. Surely it's like shipping laws, the more manouverable vessel must yield? No??

6. Just to satisfy the conspiracy theorist in me... is it at all possible that you employed some Machiavellian retail-psychology based scheme in construction of your shopping centre, ensuring that every store most likely to be required a visit, must be located as far as humanly possible from each other, in order to have poor lemming-like shoppers walk past as many other, lesser stores, sales, promotional counters and leaflet hander-outers as possible? Also possibly ice cream stores?

I trust you will take these observations in the helpful spirit they are intended, and I look forward to seeing the changes you thus implement as a result on my next visit.

Thank you for your time,

Gingerbread creations

So GG had her PlayGroup Christmas party this morning, and like the good little mamma I am, I decided to send her along with some gingerbread treats to share.

Cue a lot of mixing, kneading, GG spending 15 mins deciding what shapes we would use, only to have the reindeer and Santa's not turn out (too many little fiddly bits, gingerbread kept breaking). Most of this happened yesterday afternoon, whilst trying to get her and some snacks ready for her Kindy Christmas party. No pressure, no pressure, just relax, you've got a whole 3 minutes left...

The first batch cooling.

Then, at 6 this morning, we were baking the last 2 batches and icing the lot. Cue GG eating gingerbread cookies for breakfast, with an icing chaser. Luckily they had a jumping castle at PlayGroup, where she could bounce off all that sugar.

The last lot, iced and ready to go!

Ranting in a Winter Wonderland

OK, that's it! Having just had the latest Channel 9 "Have a wonderful Christmas" ad inflicted upon my good self, I am left to wonder if they actually live in Australia.

You know, Australia?? Land of 40 degree summers, Christmas dinners eaten in the pool and thongs as formal wear.

These kind of thongs, not the American kind.
Little tip: don't search "thongs" on Google Images,
unless you want to see a LOT of spring break asses.

So why the hell are we watching Natalie Gruzlewski (no offence, she's a top chick - we were in the same journalism class in High School) snuggle into a knitted scarf, sparkling snowflakes and whatsherface who reads the news holding ice-skates. ICE SKATES I ask of you!! I'm pretty sure if anyone had cause to use iceskates outdoors in Australia in December it would be a sign of the impending apocolypse.

And that's not to mention the countless other images we have in shopping centres, on greeting cards, decorations etc., that all seem to feature snow, sleighs, fireplaces ad nauseum. When are we going to stop clinging to this English/American version of the snow-covered Christmas, hot dinners and roasting chestnuts on an open fire? Are we really still so colonial that we need to celebrate Christmas just like "Mother England". Or that immersed in American TV and culture that we are morphing into them?

We are a PACIFIC country, we live in the hot part of the world, people. Christmas should involve prawns on a barbeque, pavlova, swimming, beach cricket (sometimes played in backyards) and the only fires we have here are bushfires, and not bloody welcome.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Frazzled

Today has been "one of those days". Hubby has been sick as the proverbial dog with the tummy bug that I just got over, my new job is good, but very complex and I'm feeling a bit slow on the uptake,although they assure me I'm doing fine. As a card-carrying member of Over-Achievers Anonymous, this makes me stressed and frustrated. Because I had Monday off sick, I have to be organised to front up and do it all over again tomorrow, as a make-up day.

GG is still blithely tearing around the place, unaffected by her parents exhaustion.Little ray of bloody sunshine...

Here's a list of things I have broken in the last 24 hours. One glass lightshade, the toenail the lightshade landed on when I stupidly put my foot out to break it's fall (honestly!??!) a glass while I was washing it up, 2 pens, my resolve not to let GG fall asleep on the couch with me and a promise to take the dog for a walk tonight.

In leiu of anything remotely entertaining or enlightening to offer, let me jump on the "Hey! Here's my Christmas Tree!" bandwagon.

We kept it very simple this year, and we are using our old fake tree. I loved our tree last year, I was worreid about fragile decorations and a curious 18mth GG, so I bought a young Norfolk Pine, stuck it in a galvanised bucket, and tied the red striped and solid ribbons you can see above all over it. That's it.. and it was gorgeous, so sweet. The tree is now planted at my Mum and Dad's place, and I had plans of getting another and adding to it, but frankly, I just don't have it in me this year.

Politically Incorrect

God I'm sick of this political correctness bullshit.

It started off as a good idea didn't it? Sort of like when your 10 and you ask your parents why doesn't everyone in the world just share their money and everything, then they'd be no really rich people, and no really poor people. Then she tells you about communism and you think "Hmm, perhaps not then". Or was that just my family???

I mean, the whole thing has just gotten out of control. I'm all for equal rights and not using defamatory words, I hate bigotry, but c'mon!! Now we have "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep"... sorry, I've never seen one of those (well except for the time I ate those mushrooms in that sheep paddock...)

Seems the government and corporate Australia are now so worried about offending any one person, that they'll offend a whole raft of us when they refuse to use the word Christmas and veto a picture of poor old Santa in a public school newsletter wishing the students a "Happy Holiday". Sure, 99.9% of the kids at the school celebrate Christmas, but hey! we don't want to upset a Jehovah's Witness or Buddhist or Jewish child. You know something? I think if the parents were that worried about their kid finding out about this whole Christmas dealy, they may not choose to send them to a public school in a Christian nation. Or to a shopping centre between October and February.

Or when a bank is so scared of being labelled racist, they allow a Muslim woman to enter in full coverings, face and all, but security insist a Caucasian man has to remove his motorbike helmet. This was done for a cable TV show I've forgotten the name of, but remember watching the spokesman for the bank squirm uncomfortably when questioned by the host of the show.

And does it seem to you (as it does to me) that a lot of the people doing the complaining, aren't actually members of the group they are telling us will be offended? And that the group who are involved, actually couldn't give a toss?

Maybe they are as pissed off as I am, sick of pandering "do-gooders" treating them like they are feeble, fragile and unable to justify their own religion and lifestyle.

I also happen to think that our fear of being labelled intolerant, is actually letting real intolerance, religous zealotry and hatred, gain a foothold.

As I'm writing this, I'm wondering if I will offend anyone? I'm also thinking, "Ahh, they can take it, and if they can't, I'm not really interested in them liking me. I'm not a fan of pussies." Well, now I've gone and gotten all the Feline-Australians all catty.. oh, wait...

The Real Meaning of Christmas

45 sleeps til Christmas.

A sentence to strike panic in the heart of any parent, and to raise joyful, expectant smiles on the faces of all kids.

This weeks Blog This challenge is about our personal meaning of Christmas.

Pic from here

I love Christmas, I really do. I love the sense of family, magic and togetherness it can bring. Of course, it can also bring about exasperation, desperation, chaos, tears and the sincere desire to choke a family member.

I love spending hours trawling shops and markets, searching for just the right gift. Thoughtful, beautiful, ethical and from the $5 bin.

Pic from here

Since having GG, I love re-discovering how magical Christmas can be. How does Santa get to all the houses in one night? How do reindeers fly? What the heck does “One More Open Tray” have to do with Christmas (this is what she sings instead of One Horse Open Sleigh) To see her amazed little face in the morning when I’ve been up til 3am decorating the house. How did this happen? Did the Christmas fairies visit? Hang on, isn’t that My Little Pony dressed as a reindeer?

I love to make those once-a-year treats at Christmas time too. Gingerbread (reindeers last year, I’m going to try a house this year), rum balls, white Christmas and Grandma Campbell’s Christmas Cake whose recipe reads like an AA meeting who slipped and went to Vegas.

Pic from here

We don’t have many traditions around Christmas in my family per se, but we do have stories that have become family legend. Like when we remind each other to be enthusiastic about all presents received by saying “Oh! My very own teabags!” which is what my sweet-souled sister excitedly said when she was a kid and our slightly doolally Grandma had mistakenly wrapped up the teabags she was taking on her trip, rather than the actual present. One tradition we do have, is that all the kids lay out the presents they have received on their bed so a photo can be taken of the haul. Well, except the year I got a horse...

So, my meaning of Christmas:

C - Cricket in the yard on Christmas Day. Remember to bring a dog who’ll go fetch those cover drives!!

H - Having all the family together, eating, drinking, bickering, telling stories and laughing.

R - Remembering “The Reason for the Season” – and it’s not presents!

I - Insisting

S - Sending Christmas cards, and then getting one from someone not on your list, only when it’s too late to send them one back!

T - Taking GG to look at beautiful Christmas lights throughout the neighbourhood.

M - Missing my Grandparents so much it hurts, but remembering all the Christmases we got to have with them.

A - Avowing not to break my budget, but I always do. :)

S - Singing Christmas Carols while I bake, while we decorate the tree, in the car, as lullabies; any chance I get!

What does Christmas mean to you?