It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas….
It doesn’t matter what the rest of the year’s been like but the lead up to Christmas never fails to soften my heart to whatever it is that’s been the bane of my existence for the previous eleven months of the year. December 1 is that magical date which marks the start of the annual Christmas wind down. All around me, there’s a collective unfurrowing of brows and unhunching of shoulders at the anticipation of endless long summer’s days spent relaxing with family and friends.
The Christmas rush may be largely propelled by retail propaganda (is there any chance of any of us starving from lack of access to the shops when they close for Christmas Day?) but we all somehow find ourselves submitting to the crowds and the chaos as we share rueful smiles with each other in the queue at the cash register. Despite the convenience of online shopping for the rest of the year, there’s something about the shops at Christmas that’s hard to resist.
Baby SSG had his first photo with Santa on Saturday.
| The fan for Santa was a thoughtful touch. |
This is how Santa’s corner looks at Rhodes this year. The staff were very friendly and efficient and Santa himself was lovely. Everyone did their best to comfort Baby SSG when he burst into tears as he sat on Santa’s lap. We calmed him down and the photo shoot proceeded with the help of a stuffed reindeer and the reassurance of sitting on my lap, close enough to Santa but not too close. Our prints and USB stick were ready within five minutes of the shoot and Baby SSG also got some appropriately festive gifts from Santa’s sack. The reindeer antlers and elf headband are going to come in very handy because there wasn’t much to be found in terms of Christmas outfits at both Cotton On and Target when we had a look on Saturday.
| Tending to the latest casualties of story time with Baby SSG. |
The other big project for the weekend was some emergency book repairing with my roll of fluorescent duct tape. I have no idea how that tiny pair of hands managed to tear off the back covers of two board books but its happened and I hope that the duct tape will stand up to Baby SSG’s high energy reading style. The Richard Scarry book brought back fond memories of my own reading of his books. The pictures told so many other stories beyond the text they accompanied and the animals of Busytown always looked as busy as the name of their home town suggested.
After the excitement of seeing Santa and going for a swim on Saturday, Sunday was all about relaxing at the park, barefoot with a drink and a snack.
My shoes were well and truly back on for work today. The weekends fly by but the working week seems to race by at an even faster pace.
I’d better get going. After weeks of trawling supermarket aisles, I’ve finally found myself an eraser and a pencil sharpener. Despite this being the age of computers, I’ve got a whole list of things that need to be pencilled so I’d best attend to them. After I’ve worked out how to use the sharpener…