The Joys of Christmas…

Well, it’s been a while. Too long in fact. But never fear, I have returned!

It’s that time of year. Christmas. And if ever meet the person that invented Christmas shopping, I’m going to have to show some self restraint. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting presents for Christmas, and I don’t even mind giving presents to people, but Christmas shopping is something that I really don’t miss come the new year. Let me explain why.

1. Now, I really don’t have that many people to buy presents for. It really shouldn’t cost me that much. And, the presents themselves don’t. But when I went out to buy my presents for people, I came home with more than twice as many things for myself. Now, I’m not as poor as other students are (but I’m heading that way) but I’m not made of cash. I haven’t finished watching all the dvd’s I picked up for myself, and I know for a fact that I will be getting more in a couple of days.  I haven’t read any of the two books I picked up. And I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have bought any of them if it weren’t Christmas. But surely, that’s not that bad is it?

2. I’m a bloke. I have absolutely no idea what people want. When I do my Christmas shopping, I want to know exactly what I’m getting and where I’m getting it. I don’t want to be walking around the shopping centre for ages. That’s what leads to all those impulse buys I was talking about earlier. Now, I don’t want to discriminate here or anything, but women are impossible to shop for. You ask them what they want and it’s all “Oh, I don’t know” or “You’ll know what I want”. Throw us guys a bone please ladies. We need more than that when it comes to shopping.

3. So, we eventually buy everything we need to buy. We’re good, right? Wrong! You then need to wrap the presents, which is something I ALWAYS stuff up. You can always pick the presents under our tree that I have wrapped before you look at the name tags. Everybody else’s wrapping is always neater than mine and more decorated than mine.

Am I the only one that feels like this?

40 Over 0

No, it’s not some kind of fraction. I haven’t taken up maths or anything like that. I wouldn’t know where to start. What it is however, is the temperature. 40°C here in Sydney today. Now, that’s not really a record or anything, there have been days in the past that have been closer to 50 than they were to 40. But they are usually one off occasions in the middle of summer. It’s still November. It’s still spring for Christ’s sake! And nor has this been a one off occasion. It got almost this high a couple of days ago. Now, I’m not really strong believer in global warming or any of that, but if days like this become the norm then I may have to rethink my beliefs!

You see, what prompted the post in the first place was that 15 mins ago, I walked out to collect the mail and by the time I got back, all of about 40 metres later, I had started to sweat. That is not nice weather! English people always complain about their weather but I can’t for the life of me see why. I think that you are just trying to continue that long held British tradition of complaining about anything. I mean, you can always tell when British Airways have landed. It’s when the whining continues even after the engines have stopped. Everyone knows that. You can’t hide from it.

Anyway, I think I’ve gotten a bit off topic. What I’m trying to say is that if this keeps up then we are in for one hell of a summer.

WEATHER UPDATE: 3pm: It’s gone all dark, it’s about to storm like a bitch.

UPDATE THE SECOND: Nightime: Well, the storm never came, it just stayed hot and humid with very dark and ominous looking clouds. May storm through the night.