humbug, bah, for the use of
Gawsh, time for the seasonal, ritual expostulation. Right, then. Hey! Who let that December in here? Darned bouncers, no good, admitting any old seasonal riffraff. I can feel my inner Scrooge beating his chest and growling, in a gentlemanly, Victorian fashion. And the mall this morning? not pretty, and there are still weeks to go.
So, on the subject of things ending in "olly". My credit card is a mess1, and my future uncertain. So no change there. But, unusually, putting these circumstances together with my Exploding Bookshelf Crisis and concomitant tendency to shy and flinch at clutter, I'm going to do the Frank, Manly Thing this Christmas. I know the immediate circle of Cape Town Friends tends to madly exchange gifts at Christmas. Please, this year, for the love of my sanity and the seams of my credit card, allow me to opt out. I will not expect presents from y'all this year. I repeat: put the presents DOWN, and back away slowly. I do not want presents. I will not distribute any myself other than to family and the Evil Landlord, although I may randomly shower people with home-made biscuits at unpredictable intervals. I love you all, but I'm broke, and trying to be sensible.
To make up for this more than usually Scrooge-like manifestation (and to cause schedule5 to swoon with obsessive Christmas glee), I will instead achieve something not entirely unlike a Christmas tree, for purposes of putting pressies under when I host my family for Christmas lunch. It will have precisely three decorations on it: two snowman earrings and a sort of festive china shapeless creature thingy in a red hat, all given to me over the years by evil friends in a spirit of Christmas malice. You can all point and laugh at my pitiful stabs at festive cheer when you come round for the Boxing Day Braai, which is definitely happening and to which you are all invited.
Now, in protest at the fact that the Evil Landlord is out tonight and I'm not allowed to watch Farscape without him, I'm proposing to pig out on leftover biryani and veg out in front of X-Men III, a copy of which I'd entirely forgotten I'd bought. Yay superheroes!
1 Particularly after the nasty random incident with the David Bowie this morning. On the other hand, hooked on "The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell"2, which fits right in with my habitual Christmas spirit.
2 Yes, not early Bowie, I'm broadening my horizons, although I also copped Ziggy Stardust. Why, yes, the new obsession is progressing quite nicely, thank you!
So, on the subject of things ending in "olly". My credit card is a mess1, and my future uncertain. So no change there. But, unusually, putting these circumstances together with my Exploding Bookshelf Crisis and concomitant tendency to shy and flinch at clutter, I'm going to do the Frank, Manly Thing this Christmas. I know the immediate circle of Cape Town Friends tends to madly exchange gifts at Christmas. Please, this year, for the love of my sanity and the seams of my credit card, allow me to opt out. I will not expect presents from y'all this year. I repeat: put the presents DOWN, and back away slowly. I do not want presents. I will not distribute any myself other than to family and the Evil Landlord, although I may randomly shower people with home-made biscuits at unpredictable intervals. I love you all, but I'm broke, and trying to be sensible.
To make up for this more than usually Scrooge-like manifestation (and to cause schedule5 to swoon with obsessive Christmas glee), I will instead achieve something not entirely unlike a Christmas tree, for purposes of putting pressies under when I host my family for Christmas lunch. It will have precisely three decorations on it: two snowman earrings and a sort of festive china shapeless creature thingy in a red hat, all given to me over the years by evil friends in a spirit of Christmas malice. You can all point and laugh at my pitiful stabs at festive cheer when you come round for the Boxing Day Braai, which is definitely happening and to which you are all invited.
Now, in protest at the fact that the Evil Landlord is out tonight and I'm not allowed to watch Farscape without him, I'm proposing to pig out on leftover biryani and veg out in front of X-Men III, a copy of which I'd entirely forgotten I'd bought. Yay superheroes!
1 Particularly after the nasty random incident with the David Bowie this morning. On the other hand, hooked on "The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell"2, which fits right in with my habitual Christmas spirit.
2 Yes, not early Bowie, I'm broadening my horizons, although I also copped Ziggy Stardust. Why, yes, the new obsession is progressing quite nicely, thank you!