Much Randomness

[deird_lj]

1) Summer is here! As is December (coincidentally).
That being the case, I must find time, this evening, to put up all my Christmas decorations.

2) Caleb, used to adults referring to me as "Auntie Deird", has always called me "DEE!"
Now, however, he's realised that there's kind of a mini vowel shift in the middle somewhere. So I've suddenly become "Ahn Dey-ard".

3) Every time I see the little speed-bumpy thingys in between escalators at Parliament station, I get an inexplicable urge to sit on the middle bit, and slide down - speed bumps or no speed bumps.

4) Tea with milk and sugar is GOOD.

5) I'm about to have one of the busiest weeks of my year, and somewhere in there I've got to find the time to write a whole bunch of fic, AND a mini drama for a Carols service.

6) One day, in the far-off reaches of time, I will eventually get to England. Today, though, is not that day...

7) I really, really need sleep. But have a whole day of work to get through. Am substituting for sleep with tea and internet. Seems to work.

Comments

[padawanspider.livejournal.com]

I shall have to experience a summer Christmas someday. It seems very odd.

Is your Santa Claus dressed in fur and boots, or a Hawaiian shirt and swimming trunks?

[deird1]

Heh. That might be more sensible, but no - our Santa is dressed in the full regalia. And whoever's being a Santa Claus for something spends the entire day BOILING.

Weirdly, our Christmases still are culturally winterish.
Um...
That sounded odd...
What I mean is, we sing songs about snow and reindeer, we have snow-covered-fields-and-so-forth on cards, we have roast dinners (some of us), we spray fake snow on Christmas trees, and we have hot Christmas pudding, and, yeah, full Santa outfits including fake beards.

And yet, it's usually 40 degrees outside (104 F), and we'll all be in shorts and t-shirts, and have a game of backyard cricket after lunch...

From Laney

[(Anonymous)]

But we also have Carols By Candlelight (i.e. big outdoor events with everyone sitting on rugs waving their candles in the air).
And some of us have BBQs and salads instead of roast. And everyone sits outside to eat (round a table, still, but outside).
And Christmas pudding is served with icecream.

And Melbourne's weather is so unpredictable anyway that it has SNOWED twice on Christmas Day in the last 10 years (not a lot, but up in the mountains - we just all wore our thick jackets to church). In Summer.

You can buy LOTS of Christmas cards with Santa in shorts and thongs (err... sorry, flip-flops), but they're usually quite jokey ones. He'll be surfing, or having a beer wearing sunglasses sitting in a deckchair. You won't find those more romantic, traditional-style pictures of him but wearing summery clothes (I can't even imagine it - that would be WEIRD).

[deird1]

Since when have you sat outside to eat on Christmas day? Both sides of the family tend to have indoor food, if I remember correctly.

From Laney

[(Anonymous)]

????
At Gran's we always sat outside.

And in Matt's family, in Traralgon, they sit outside (not around a table).

And, in Kew, they all sit at a long table under a pergola with vines on it and it is beauuuuuuuuutiful (plus, that's the part of the family with two chefs, so the food is also rather spectacular). We even had pressies on the lawn that year. It was sooooo nice and refined-ish.

[deird1]

Sounds pretty...


We never sat outside at Gran's, did we?

From Laney

[(Anonymous)]

Where were you?

There are photos, if you need confirmation!

Maybe it happened more when you were younger and there were more of us wanting to run around outside...