One of many Christmas traditions

StickyScreen, leave yourself a virtual stickynote, I love it!

I know I've been a bad blogger as usual, despite my promises of keeping you in the loop. It seems that once you finish your degree and stop getting AusStudy payments you actually have to work more than one day a week to support yourself, who knew? So I have been slogging it out at IKEA most days, trying to be as polite as I possibly can while explaining once again why it is that we don't provide plastic shopping bags, and why you have to load up your trolleys yourself, and why you can't take the trolleys to the carpark. I try, I really do, but when you've dealt with the same snippy remarks about exactly the same things with every third customer can you really blame me if I don't answer with a smile?


But all that doesn't matter, because it's almost Christmas and I'm only working one day between now and Christmas so I have plenty of time to wrap, bake and shop. Our little flat is a tremendous mess because I either haven't been home or I've been too tired to care about the random mess strewn across all rooms, unfortunately I will have to clean it all before the parents arrive on Christmas day. Shame that.


I thought I might share with you one of the many Christmas traditions I seem to have acquired while living in Melbourne, and it basically involves eating, drinking, and looking at Christmas stuff in the city with one of my fellow ex-hometown compatriots. For the last three years we have ventured into the city to view the Myer windows, the Fed Square advent calender, and the Crown atrium show. This year we followed this with the cheapest and best dumplings in Melbourne from Shanghai Dumpling, my new favourite place to eat in the city, and then cocktails at Cookie which are always huge and amazing (despite the 20 minute wait). It's one of my favourite Christmas traditions despite how increasingly disapointing the Myer windows are and how both Fed Square and Crown seem unable to give up what they have done for the past few years for something new.

One of the other Christmas traditions I have is with my parents and my aunt, every Christmas Eve we watch Carols by Candlelight (in the dark, with actual candles) and drink champagne, eat cheese and sing along badly (they are all tone death) to the carols. This year we are taking it one step further and going to the rehearsals which are on the day before, Mum is packing us a picnic and I'm hoping to have time to bake us up some goodies as well, I can't wait!