I’m Writing About Christmas A Month Late and I Don’t Care.

in #joy6 years ago (edited)

Sure, it’s almost a month since Christmas has come and gone, but I feel like I’ve written absolutely nothing about it.

I am out to save last Christmas (and the whole month that preceded it).

As a writer, I have eight million ideas in my head that need to be transmogrified into my own little creations (sometimes there’s literally nothing, though). Whether they are my thoughts about a new comic book, my angry rantings about why non-vegans don’t get me and why they God-damn-should or my little experiments to see if the whole upvote bot thing is worth all the trouble, all are valuable to me. Hopefully you see value in them, too.

So without further ado, I present to you some moments over the month before Christmas that I just don’t want to lose to memory (my own or the forever expansive memory in my Samsung Galaxy S8).

Let’s just all revel in how precious I look in my new eye mask, shall we?

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Hayley and I treated ourselves to new eye masks after Christmas.

In the last week of school term, I decided to have a traditional Aussie Christmas-themed celebration with snowball fights in the classroom! As Australia is not known for it’s frigid temperatures, our snowballs consisted of shaving foam! The rules were simple. Answer a question proposed by another student about Christmas (eg. which reindeer’s name starts with the letter ‘P’?). Getting a wrong answer would mean you’d be the target. The catch was, students who were flicking ‘snowballs’ with the spoon were blindfolded. It was so much fun and the kids lost their minds. A teacher’s delight.

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Black plastic was used as a backing and for student clothes protection!

For Christmas 2016, Hayley had bought me a tall-ship experience on Sydney harbour. We had spent all year doing other things that we never got around to doing it. Of course, the last month before it’s expiry rolled around and we started to panic, so Hayley booked us in for the day.

The crow’s nest was an additional extra and to be honest, made me pretty green around the gills. I’m not sure how I managed not to throw up – and I’m not one to usually suffer from motion sickness. Never without excitement, just hours before we boarded the boat, there was a collision between a Sydney ferry and an expensive catamaran. As the ferries have right of way, that’s forty grand the owner of the private vessel was out of pocket for repairs. They were just lucky that nobody was injured. Crazy stuff.

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Sydney harbour providing all the scenery.

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The view was gorgeous and the weather was pleasant. Dem climbing skillz!

As a combined birthday/get-together before Christmas, my sister Carla invited us to her place in Sydney.

My younger sister’s partner, Luke and I both share the same birthday – the 8th of December. Of course, we had to have two cakes. Not sure why.. But YAY! Of course, mine was vegan and super delicious.

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It even has my name spelled in vegan icing!

Well, after about twenty minutes of catching up, my two sisters were fluffing about the oven. I was deep in conversation with my brother in law, Simon who seemed distant. Hmm. This was strange. I glanced over to find Elle, my younger sister crying. I had no clue what was going on. This is what I saw. I’ll let you be the judge.

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You probably guessed it in two seconds. I was clueless and it basically took someone to bash me over the back of the head and skywrite it for me. Carla is pregnant and due mid next year.

OMG! I’m going to be an UNCLE!

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We’ve since found out the baby’s a girl. My younger sister on the right, Elle and a face full of tears. Of joy. Not jealousy. At all.

This takes even more pressure off Hayley and I to have our own kids, not that we felt a great deal from other people in any case. Although, when you’re surrounded by friends, family and work colleagues that are increasingly expanding around the waistline it feels like it’s supposed to be our turn or something. I love kids, don’t get me wrong (I’m a school teacher), but thinking of all those sleepless nights, tantrums thrown, profanities profaned? and doors slammed, Hayley and I are on the same page right now.

We’re happy to wait for a wee bit longer.

After all that excitement, you’d think it would slow down, right? Nah. Hayley is the big wig in town when it comes to organising events at the Innovation Campus at Wollongong University and she’d organised for a local farmer’s market to use the space within the campus to get some Christmas cheer raging. All the stalls you’d expect were there – artisan breads, beers on tap, clothing, literature, a live band and wandering performers. I bought Dad’s present here. I’m not going to spoil it because I STILL haven’t seen him to give it to him! Gimme a break.. I know I’m a terrible person. Worry not, we’ll be catching up with Dad and his partner as well as my younger brothers before too long.

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The entertainment was top stuff! Who doesn’t like people who can hold other people on themselves?

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Santa even showed up. That beard was REAL. And so was the awkwardness. None of the organisers had asked him to come, so he was an actual 'random Santa'.

I wanted to give people a reason this year to keep my Christmas cards.

I figure, when you add this much effort to the message inside, it’s got to repel the forces of the bin for at least twelve months. Is that fair?

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Other cards included pictures of snowmen and more Christmas trees.

So, here we are. Christmas Day.

Initially, we were expecting just six people at our place including us. We have a small apartment, so this was going to max out our table seatings. Two weeks before Christmas, and we were lumped with the surprise that now, my brother in law had invited his partner and their two kids to join us. Well, if it meant we were going to have a vegan Christmas with nine people, so be it. Less animals killed for a transient Christmas lunch. Take the wins where you can get them, people.

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The obligatory LEGO set. And interestingly, no shoelaces. Damn kids these days.

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We decided to give the elf-boy a present, too.

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And Hayley thought my Cookie Monster headwear wouldn’t get any more use after we came back from Japan in 2014..

Drum roll…. VEGAN SPREAD FOR THE WIN!

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Vegans eat AMAZING food, yo!

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This roast was bought at Suzy Spoons Vegetarian (vegan) butcher. The outside of the roast was even crispy!

Well, you’ve made it this far. I congratulate you, my dear friend. Who knew you’d make it through this many photos? Don’t go getting too big of a head now – last year I read a Steemit article with .. and I’m not kidding you .. over fifty photos ... all smack-bang in the middle of her post. Therefore, if you wanted to get to the end, you had to get through eight minutes of strenuous finger swiping. It was torture. The sad part about it was she wrote really well. I’ve lost the link, otherwise I’d share it. But really, you probably don’t want to put yourself through that, right?

I’ll leave you with a photo of what I had to look forward to in the New Year.

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All the best,

Nick.

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Acknowledgements

HEY! They’re all my own photos, thank you very much!

Sort:  

In the first photo. You look like David Beckham.
Congratulations on your niece.

Haha.

Just as long as I don't sound like him! Lol. Actually, the airport security guy asked me where I was heading today. I said,

"Home, Sydney."

"And where are you from?", he said.

"Wollongong." (a very close city to Sydney all Aussies know), I said.

He laughed and said oh crap you look German!

Thanks for the congrats. Appreciate your kind words.

Cheers,
Nick

Ha! You must look like a look of people. Lol.

You’re welcome

Hehe.

Thanks for reading and stopping by and saying g'day!

Cheers.
Nick

You’re welcome.
Thanks for the upvote

I didn't read the entire thing, but I wanted to ask - could you see damage on the ferry from the collision?

No actually- we didn't see either of the damaged vessels. The skipper of our boat was just relating something that happened earlier that day!

It would have been scary witnessing it first hand.

Nick

Ah, that makes more sense.

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You really have life full of interesting things!! Congratulations and enjoy every moment!!

Thanks. It seems interesting when its crammed into one post. Lol.

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Nick

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