Except there is no snow.
Anyhow. It’s been one of those weeks. Monday I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open, Tuesday I went around thinking it was Friday and was disappointed every time I remembered that it wasn’t. Ditto yesterday, except I was less disappointed. Ditto today, but today it’s ok because I’ve decided to take tomorrow off anyway to do some Christmas shopping and such. I would have had to leave work early in any case, as the NMWL committee Christmas bash is tomorrow night and I’m supposed to sort out the roasting of ducks, which takes a while.
After work I am going to see Master & Commander on my own while the boyfriend does useful things like cleaning stuff. Because why? Because this is the last chance I have before it moves to one of the smaller screens. It had better be good, or I will be very miffed indeed. Not only am I looking forward to seeing Jack and Stephen on screen, and not only is Patrick O’Brian’s writing way to good to be messed about with, but if the film’s no good I won’t have anyone to make out with while waiting for the battle scenes. And it’s not as if it’s a film worth seeing just to stare at the hero either (I mean, Russel Crowe – blargh – now, if it had been Denzel Washington, for example…). Hopefully there will be more Stephen in the film than is obvious from the trailers and promotional material (which is “not at all”), Bettany might actually make a pretty good Stephen (though he’s too tall). Jack without Stephen is, I suspect, likely to be pretty boring. We’ll see.
On a related note: Only 10 days until Return of the King! Yay!
That had very little to do with Christmas, but never mind. Back to topic: I seem to have goofed up a bit on the whole present situation this year. Problem is I’ve got both my brother and my parents alchohol related presents. Which is fine, they’ll be pleased (I think), but due to the fact that my grandfather is stricktly opposed to any sort of drinking I can’t really put these under the tree with the rest of the presents. And since the reason I can’t do that is that what we do on Christmas eve is sit around and open all the presents one by one, it’s going to be pretty obvious if neither of them get any presents from me. My grandparents might not notice, but if they do it’s going to be hard to explain. My father’s all right, because I’ve picked up something else for him already (long before this problem even arose, in fact), but I really need to find something to wrap up for my brother and mother. My mother’s pretty difficult to shop for at the best of times, and having to find something in addition to the “real” present is therefore a bit tricky. Finding something for my brother would be a piece of cake, except I already spent way too much on the alchohol-related present, and so need to find something that doesn’t cost a bunch. I also need to sort out the presents for my grandparents. I know what I’m getting for them, I just haven’t done anything about it yet. And I need something for Janne. And then there’s that additional person to shop for that I seem to have aquired this year. I think I have that sorted though. Still, tomorrow could be kinda busy.
Happily, I actually like buying people presents. I’m probably going to have a good time gallivanting about town tomorrow trying to find the perfect “extra” gift for my brother. The main danger is actually that I’ll find too many things I want to get, including presents for myself and more stuff for the people I’ve already got presents for, and end up spending too much money. Perhaps it would be better to leave all credit cards at home.
Lastly, if you need a laugh, this is a very good place to look (via Anja).
Have you managed all the (additional) presents? If not, and your mother and/or brother like coffee and/or tea, that’s a good direction. I went with coffee (coffee, cups, syrup, milk frother) and mocha (flylady) for my parents this year.