Thursday 11 December 2014

Why Christmas 2014 is already the best ever



I love Christmas. I love food, friends and time spent with my family and of course, I love presents and surprising people and giving things (including things to myself!) It's my birthday just after Christmas as well, so the whole time of year kind of feels like a festivus of me..

That said, this particular Christmas is so far working out to be quite spectacular in its own right, for several reasons...

1. I'm pretty much organised as far as gifts go. 


It's the absolute dream, no? M is sorted (thank you Apple for your unnervingly reliable and accurate shipping times). My sister's gift will be ready to collect next week and my mother's present is on its way from Hill Smith Gallery as we speak. I have all my jam jars ready for jam-making, the fruits of which will be going to my extended family and other friends. My kris kringle presents for the guests at my dinner party are purchased and merely await wrapping. I am feeling like a pretty smug organised beaver right now. Feel free to hate me :)

2. The balance of social and quiet relaxation has been struck


Everyone likes a party. Hosting one makes you feel completely grown up and sophisticated, being invited makes you feel incredibly popular.  Having nothing on your social calendar through December would be a bit like that time all your friends were invited to THE end-of-year school party and you waited expectantly before deciding the day before that you really didn't want to go anyway and you'd much rather get a headstart on your summer projects #sadface

However, in adulthood, there is such as thing as too much busyness. Too much work, too much social stuff after hours, not enough sleep/relationship time. What you're going for is a balance: enough fun times out with friends and new outfits and hip eateries so you don't feel like a hermit plus enough quiet time on the couch in your big underpants so you still have energy come Monday morning.

3. Christmas entertaining and food is sorted


Obviously first up is the dinner party this weekend and while I've still got to do the shopping, I do have a very comprehensive list which should make it a breeze in Woolworths on Saturday morning in my gym gear. 

Christmas eve dinner is just M, myself and my mother and as we all like each other and get along splendidly, the dinner is really just going to be an average Sunday night and I can do those standing on my head. 

Christmas day, it's just the two of us. Right now, I'm sure, there are numerous loved-up couples hating us because their Christmas day will be spent traveling to various parents and siblings homes to join in a lunch with 30 other people, some of whom you have not met and many of whom you may not particularly like. 

My lot is scattered this year and so, dear friends, we are celebrating that unicorn of life's social situations: a truly quiet Christmas.  There's no pressure to produce enough food to feed a football team, with enough variety in the sides/salads to quell Auntie Mary's judgmental eye and make it all look easy when they turn up at a quarter past 10, squawking for nosh.  

M and I will be waking up when we're ready, walking the dog around Kangaroo Point and then settling in with prawns, fresh bread, cocktail sauce and a bottle of crisp white wine, all to ourselves, before an afternoon that looks like this:


And that, to me, is the mark of a truly superb Christmas.  It's been a very big year, 2014, and I'm looking forward to briefly kicking back :) xo

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