Happy Christmas…!
As you may well know, 31 OCT = 25 DEC*, so I am kicking off the celebrations on the day. And not beforehand.
If you prefer to remain Gregorian, I am perfectly happy for you to do all your shopping in a month or so’s time. I haven’t started mine yet.
But I have been thinking about it. Our little clan has been growing and various suggestions had been made about running a Secret Santa this year, so that anyone over the age of one should only get one present from another person in the group. Everyone gets one present and everyone only pays for one present. And, as dad revealed today, you get to the age where 90% of presents you receive were not things you would actually have asked for and start thinking ‘maybe I should ask for something specific’. A book. Time to read it. A voucher. Something for the garden. Something for the kitchen. Something for the bath. You know, something you actually want yourself, not something somebody else (i) believed you wanted, or (ii) believed you really ought to want.
So on my side of the family, we have decided to go ahead with this, and it is all getting very interesting. My husband is a technical** kind of bloke. So he thought to himself:
100 CONSIDER ‘how to make life easy’
200 WRITE computer programme [to put the Secret in Secret Santa]
300 ELSEIF decent programme already exists CHECK
400 GO TO 100 and STOP
Translated into threescorespeak, he discovered www.elfster.com. I have to say, I am impressed. I know other parts of the extended clan do other things, and I have the greatest respect for coloured dots (I’m sure I speak for us all in saying that coloured dots have enhanced our lives to a great degree in recent years), not to mention envelopes, but as of this weekend, we will be giving the Elfster a chance, and seeing what happens.
I just hope Top Secret Santa is a little less violent than other secret agents I could name. I was quite shaken (but not entirely stirred) this afternoon at a violent showing at the cinema (our first trip in a very long time) to see a film my sister had not been duly credited for (if you are interested, she removed some wires where ‘Craig, Daniel Craig’ says “we had a mutual friend” and edited a lot of fake blood out of the wrong part of a bad guy’s leg when the leading lady stabbed him). This makes her a wireless nurse or something. I am very proud of her and impressed, as I never have to clear up blood from stabbing someone’s leg, or remove wires from people, and wouldn’t have the first idea how to. Kudos.
* 31 in Octal is 25 in Decimal numbers
** ‘technical’ is technically not a strong enough word, I feel
jam and giraffes 