Christmas and aftermath

Well, all in all, it’s been a great Christmas long weekend. Lucky next week is broken up by New Year’s Day, otherwise going back to a full work week would be a bit of a blow.

On Christmas Day we awoke to the inevitable pile of presents under the tree, and proceeded at a leisurely pace to open them all. I think we all did pretty well, just about all the presents had been very well chosen. Which is good – it’s always a relief when you don’t have to give them all to your local charity because there’s nothing you like!

After that we went over to my mum’s place for Christmas lunch. It was pretty warm, not sweltering – about 35° (that’s 95° for you people in the Third World still using Fahrenheit), so we sat around in the garden and munched on turkey (or was it chicken?) and ham and mountains of other various Christmassy foods. Again the swapping of presents took place.

If anybody’s reading who doesn’t get Boxing Day off, and is wondering what Boxing Day is for then ummm…. I don’t know. I don’t think anybody really does. But it’s as good an excuse as any to have another day off. Certainly the name is confusing, since it’s Boxing Day when seventy thousand odd people go along to the cricket at the ‘G. Maybe they in Melbourne they should call it Cricket Day. And of course in South Australia it’s called Proclamation Day, because they just have to be different, don’t they?

We spent the rest of the long weekend relaxing in the time-honoured tradition, with occasional expeditions out to see what bargains could be had at the post-Christmas sales. My general conclusion is that if you’re lucky enough to actually want to buy something that’s heavily discounted, then good for you. But there appears to be an awful lot of crap that the stores put out in the discount bins that wouldn’t normally sell, that they’re hoping will be bought by people who are looking for a bargain.

"Wow, look, Garbazanoid Blasters ’95 on CD-ROM, only three dollars!"

"But you don’t like video games!"

"But it’s only three dollars!"

"But we don’t even have a computer!"

"It’s been marked down from forty dollars! That’s thirty-seven dollars savings! That’s ummm… well that’s a lot of percent, let me tell you! It’s a bargain, a bargain I tell you! Wow, they’re not kidding when they say they’re sales have genuine savings! I’m not missing this opportunity to save thirty-seven dollars! In fact here’s another one – I’ll take two!"

At the moment we’ve been trying to clear a lot of this kind of crap out of the house, with some success, as the two bags and one box behind me filled with stuff ready to go to the Opp Shop are testimony to. What we are looking for is a new fridge with an adequate capacity for our fast growing family. As it happens we’ve already more-or-less settled on the particular model, and it doesn’t appear to be one of the ones discounted very much, if at all.

It’s incredible to think that 1997 is almost over. Wednesday is New Year’s Eve, and I’m determined to see the year out with a bang. I’m not even sure what’s on, but if nothing else eventuates, it’ll probably just be Southbank and/or the City Square enjoying the fireworks.