To finish off 2011 ...

The Many Days of Christmas

Whew!  Christmas this year was a mammoth effort, with many different celebrations with different groups of people on different days.  The saving grace was that all the days were low-key and we didn't go overboard with presents, food or anything else.  It was just the absence of Nanna Naps each day that made me so exhausted.

The weather in our part of Australia has been much nicer than it was this time last year.  We've had some showers at night but the days have been warm and sunny, and the children have wanted nothing more than to be outside enjoying it.

Apart from that, there's not much to report.  Just trivia like:

• Mr de Elba shaved the dog again.  She's remained tick-free since September, and she looks nice with her sleek Number One hairdo.
• If you choose to move Christmas festivities to a park, you're likely to get your photo in the local paper.
• If you stand lop-sided in the photo for the paper, you may end up looking like you're an A-cup on one side and a DD-cup on the other.  Most people wouldn't notice this though: it would serve you well not to mention it to anyone and you may just get away with it.
• Kids are nice to have around.  The six-week Christmas holiday is really an endurance event, but it is nice to have the little guys around.
• Soon they will all be fighting and I may retract that.
• Afternoon naps for everyone are great ... until bedtime blows out and everyone is up late.
• I keep thinking I should get on Facebook but I'm just not making the leap.  It does look like fun though.
• My desk here would be a whole lot tidier if I didn't go to bed so early.
• Waking up early doesn't translate into a clean desk.
• I need to watch more TV so that I actually get the folding done.  I just hate watching TV, that's all.
• Jessie may be the perfect nativity "Mary" in all the practices but end up crying and pouting through the performance due to a wardrobe malfunction involving her headpiece.
• Your blogs are all interesting and wonderful, and I may not have anything interesting to blog ever again until things start going wrong or falling apart again.  Not that I'm complaining ...

Nice to chat with you again.  We should do this more often.

Legs Eleven! Knees Zero-Zero!

I was playing keys at church yesterday.  There would have been 700-800 people there, and when I play I try not do anything that would make a spectacle of myself.

After much joking among the band regarding how bad/good/fantastic it would be if one day, someone would fall in the baptismal tank while negotiating their entry or exit from the stage, and also after choosing some extremely unwise wedges that hurt my legs and feet, made my toes numb and made walking difficult, I managed NOT to disgrace myself in this manner.

I curbed the worst effects of my Bad Hair Day, I wore a red shirt and I chose a straight denim skirt that came to just above the knee.  I was certain that up on stage there was no danger of flashing anyone, even when the skirt rode up a little as I perched on my stool (I can't stand and pedal because of this.)

I thought I was safe until the pastor, having delivered his message from the stage, moved down onto the steps at the front to say something very serious and important just before the final song.

Hang on, I thought.  I am always quite aware of the line of sight from the video recorder, through the spot where the pastor is standing, to the band behind.  It seemed that after he moved, I was in the danger zone.

I turned and looked at the screen (the brand-new WI-I-IDE screen!) behind me.  There was the pastor, saying his final thing and beside him, like a bright shining number 11, were MY LEGS with their knobbly knees and white nearly-35-year-old skin.  And they were HUGE on the big screen!

To me, they were more noticeable than the pastor in the middle of the shot.  If you were there, leave a comment to say they were NOT.  If you don't leave a comment, I will assume they WERE.

(I know they were.  Long black trousers next time.)

Red Cards all round

Jessie has a little writing desk in the corner of her room.  She often sits there creating lovely drawings for us, gifts of love for a family she adores ...

... on her good days.

However, she has recently started drawing us "punishment pictures" for when "people are mean to her."  This can mean when her brothers fight with her or when her parents discipline her, and now that we're one week into our six-week school holidays, that means ALL of us, ALL the time.

She gives these pictures out the way a soccer referee gives out red cards.  They involve a violently-orange, angrily-scribbled portrait of the offender designed to insult and humiliate us.  Gone are the intricate drawings of smiling family members with careful hands and feet and nice hair.  Here are some examples (I blurred out Mr de Elba's name in the top left):

We've all been red-carded.

Call me "Fat G."

These days, Jessie is presenting me with lots of pieces of paper with little writings and drawings on them. She addresses them all to me, and she is now calling me "Fat G."

The "F" is actually a "K" and the "g" is really an "e." But in my mind, I call myself, "Fat G." You are permitted to do the same.

Ur doin it rong

If your kids take communion in a church like ours, you want them to be suitably reverent.

It's great when they learn to quietly say "Thankyou God for Jesus," and "Sorry for the wrong things that I do," before they quietly eat their bread and drink their teensy bit of juice.

But if after drinking the juice, your six year old boy lets out a burp and says, "C'n I 'ave some more?" it may be time to retire him from communion for a bit.