Hello 2011. I can't believe you're already here and that January has come and gone so quickly! The year is off to a flying start. Christmas was fairly tranquil, aside from the manic last-minute city shopping. Actually, it wasn't all that manic or all that last-minute, but shopping in the city (especially around Christmas time) makes me so anxious. People all around me, invariably violating my pedestrian traffic rules, walking slowly, walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk, walking in clumps of spatially unaware beings! At least there weren't umbrellas, because then I'd have really flipped my shit. Anyhew, lots of last minute mulling on what to get this person (this person mostly being Marcus) and trying to wend my way through the same shops over and over again. The biggest task of the season was certainly the Christmas sock hunt.
I thought it would be a great idea to bring a bit of my family's tradition into my Australian Christmas. It's fun to share tradition, and while spending Christmas in another country it makes me feel a bit more at home. My first thought was stockings! Australians, or at least Marcus's family, don't do Christmas stockings--they do Christmas bags, which basically serve the same function but it's a giant bag instead of a stocking. So I thought, fun, I'll do stockings for everyone! But my environment, anti-consumerism conscience spoke up and said, "No, Tina, the stockings will never get used again." But I still wanted to do stockings, so landed on the idea of Christmas socks! Smaller, not quite so roomy, but I can fit a mandarin in the toe and that'll work for the orange that always sat in the toes of our own stockings!
First stores entered--Kmart and Target. Um, no. Barely even a Christmas shirt. Which is great that they're not spending lots of time making useless holiday items that will only get used once a year, but it didn't help my stocking/sock/tradition plan. Next were the dollar stores, at least four of them. Nada. Zip. Some fugly stockings were to be found, but no Christmas socks! At least none bigger than infant size. Next Myer (like Macy's). No. Next David Jones. No women's socks, but yes to men's socks! Hallelujah! Except that they were $30 per pair. Nope, that's certainly not going to do it. Then I remembered the sock stalls in the gigantic Paddy's Markets down in Chinatown. Granted, it's Chinatown, but if somebody's going to have some kind of useless crap like that, it would be at the markets. Bingo! Three pairs of Christmas socks. Three little-footed pairs of women's Christmas socks, that is. Not exactly a bonanza, but it was the best I could find. I thought I'd stumble upon more Christmas socks and had more frantic shopping trips that ended in a crazed Tina walk to my bus stop, wanting to get as far away from the crowds as possible!
As you might guess, I had to go back to the markets to get more socks, and ended up buying some green and red socks for everyone else, so if not exactly a Christmas sock at least it was a Christmas colored sock. I also had to special order a Harry Connick Jr. Christmas CD from Melbourne because they didn't it anywhere in Sydney. Unbelievable! What a mission.
There were several other seasonal items that I thought were common-sense things stocked everywhere, but I was wrong. The US's consumerism runs so deep and there is such a high demand for just about everything, you can usually find whatever you want. Today, as we approach Valentine's Day, I found myself reminiscing about Valentine's Day at home. While Easter candy is infiltrating Sydney's grocery stores, I find myself wanting Valentine's Day candy. I want that crappy heart-shaped chocolate box. I want to nibble through each chocolate to find out which ones I'll eat (usually just the caramel one) and which ones I'll give to my sisters. I want conversation hearts, and not the Necco kind, but the tart ones that you actually do have to search for. I want to wander down the Valentine aisle and peruse through this year's collection of Valentines. What will the new Valentines be? Will they still have the Crocodile Hunter? How many Disney princess boxes will they have this year? I want to pick out my own box of Valentines and fill them out for my co-workers and maybe slip some little tart hearts into the envelope. Yes, I am a classic hypocrite of consumerism, but I'm also sentimental and I miss the little things.
But back to Christmas. We filled the socks with chocolates and home made picture magnets and, naturally, a mandarin in the toe. They were quite cute, if I do say so myself.
They were cute.
I made my traditional pretzels dipped in chocolate dipped in crushed candy cane. They got a bit sticky in the summer humidity, but the general taste was still good. :) We also made some rocky road. Get this, I actually made marshmallows from scratch. From scratch! They were soft and stretchy and pretty tasty. We cut up some of those and added them into melted chocolate, coconut, turkish delight and peanuts to make home-made rocky road, which was also quite delightful.
Christmas day we opened far too many presents, ate the traditional Christmas lunch, beginning with prawns and salad, ending with turkey, ham and trifle. After the food settled, we took a walk to the beach and had a read.
There were a few more trips to the beach, lots of eating and doing a whole lotta nothing while we were up in Nelson Bay, which was just about right. I came back to work for the three days in between Christmas and New Year's holidays and tried to get some work done. Not many donations come in at that time, so I tried reading books on how to successfully manage a non-profit. Most of those tips sounded great, particularly those relating to board members and while the intentions of my boss are good surrounding things to implement with our board, most of them don't tend to happen. There's a lot of talk and strategy in our group and slightly less action. We do get a lot done, but it's different from strategy and planning back at CSF.
So work was slightly uneventful, though I did get to spend lunches with a new friend at the office.
I worked on NYE until around 2pm then headed home to get ready for the rest of the evening. We got all gussied up and headed up to one of Marcus's friends' apartments for a few hours. Their apartment has an amazing view of the city and the harbor and we were originally planning on spending our evening there. That is, until one of the gals at work offered us something better. As in, the best place you could watch fireworks in Sydney. Our department at work hosts opening night pre-show functions for all of our main shows of the year, and all of our shows at the Opera House have a pre-show function at this restaurant called Aria (very schmance, and of course my favorite hor d'oeuvre is the cheeseball...classy this girl). Our contact at Aria offered the gal she works with in our department two comp tickets to the NYE party at the Opera House. And this gal didn't want to go (she's been there, done that) and she offered them to me. Um, hells yeah! To give you an idea, these tickets cost $500 each, so I jumped on those suckers.
The people at the party were...not exactly the people you'd expect, the likes of which Marcus compared to the attendees of a 21st birthday party. But the view couldn't have been better and they were absolutely the best fireworks I've ever seen, completely timed to music. Have you ever had the experience when you're watching figure skaters or gymnasts on a floor routine and you want to pull your hair out because the music is completely superfluous? This was the opposite. The fireworks were perfectly-timed and the kinds and colors of fireworks used were appropriate for the music being played. I loved it!
Well, I suppose that's enough for now. I'll get back to you on what's been going on in January.
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