No Mistletoe, Just Wine

Apologies for my absence. It's been a busy run-up to Christmas this year. Buying and sending presents, cleaning, shopping, prepping food, filling the freezer and all that goes with it. Oh, and the little thing called work, as well. With Mr S being gone over to the neighbouring island, I was kept busy on my days off getting everything ready.

Work got wrapped up nicely last Sunday and we headed off to Galway to our Christmas party. It was a successful night all round. Lots of happy smiles, plenty of good food and more than enough wine and other beverages. Having said that, my decision to wear magic knickers under my party dress (eBay purchase, for 15 euro) somewhat hampered my ability to enjoy the food to my stomach's full capacity. The famous knickers were bought in Penneys and I really wonder why would you spend any more than the €6.50 I did on them? I mean, I've seen them go for well over €30 in some shops, but these ones worked a treat and even after a wash and a spin in the tumble dryer they seem to be holding onto the magic just fine. I'll report back after the next time I decide to suck everything in and not eat for a night.

We had time to do some shopping on Monday after the party, I got a lovely coat in a¦wear (that I can't seem to find online to show you), cream tweed with a faux fur collar, €37.50 down from €80. A colleague got a coat in Oasis for €62 down from €125 (website says original price was €95, I wonder what that is all about?), apparently now is the time to shop for a nice, comfy coat.

Then, Tuesday night, it finally happened. Mr S came home!! Those were the longest five weeks of my life!But he's home now and we're both on holiday! I'm not going back to work until next Tuesday, Mr S will potter about at the hotel doing a few bits and pieces there but not until after Christmas.

I spent all day yesterday baking. I need to have my Finnish Christmas treats, and Mr S is more than happy to go along with that, to be honest I think he'd be equally happy with a pizza on Christmas day than a massive feast. Anyhoo, I made the traditional little star pastries (puff pastry with plum marmalade), gingerbread biscuits, mince beef and rice pasties and mince pies with a twist. The twist being that we don't really eat raisins, so I made the mincemeat filling using fresh and dried cranberries, apple and liberal amounts of port and brown sugar.

Everything is ready. The tree is up, decorations dotted around the house. Presents wrapped and under the tree, cards posted and received. There's food and wine in the house, all is peaceful and quiet. Let Christmas come!

To all of you and yours, a very happy, peaceful Christmas!

Grey Skies

Today has been bloody miserable, weather-wise. At around noon I decided I wasn't going to leave the house at all, there's no point in getting soaked. I started the day with a winning breakfast of bacon and fried eggs. And liberal amounts of coffee, of course. The cats kept me company for all of half an hour before racing into the bedroom and taking up their assigned corners of the bed and went to sleep. Lucky kitties.

I got all my shopping done yesterday; more than I needed if I'm honest but I am actually buying bits ready for Christmas as well in an effort to spread the cost over a few weeks rather than doing a mad dash at the shops on Christmas week. I picked up a few bottles of wine over the last couple of weeks, seems like every shop is doing some sort of a promotion. I'm going to try this one out soon, mainly because it was so cheap I'm struggling to believe it can be in any way drinkable. Having said that, in Italy we enjoyed some really nice wines that cost at around €2per bottle. So there may be hope for this little Australian Shiraz.

It was also pointed out to me that the lizard in the label bears an uncanny resemblance to my tattoo:

As far as my anti-social experiment is going, all I can say is "So far, so good". I haven't started climbing the walls yet, I've not been reduced to tears watching the John Lewis Christmas ad nor have I been trying to converse with the cats. Yet. It's been a week and a bit and I must say I'm holding up remarkably well. That being said, I feel I must point out that I've spent precious little time at home, so maybe I haven't just yet realised that I am home alone. I even watched a scary movie by myself the other night, and didn't feel the need to sleep with our trusty baseball bat beside my bed.

This next thing is going to annoy some of you; I've started my Christmas shopping already. And for once, it's Mr. S's present that I got sorted first! He's so difficult to buy for, I'm usually picking his brain for weeks and weeks before an epiphany hits me as to what to get him. The epiphany-fairy must've been doing his rounds early this year, that's one present out of the way and dealt with. As for the rest, I know what I'm getting everyone else, so there's really no big panic. Now all I have to do is get off my arse, get down the shops and buy the bloody things. No panic at all.

The work Christmas party date and venue were announced the last day as well. Cue dress panic. I've had a quick look on asos.com and came to the conclusion that most of the dresses are ridiculously short! I don't like my legs all that much and parading them around in a teeny tiny dress in front of all my work mates isn't something I'm planning on doing no matter how much Morgan's Spiced Rum you pour down my throat. I do have a dress already that I haven't worn all that much at all that I could fall back on if all else fails. Still, the temptation to buy something new may prove too much to resist...

I'm off to fight the greyness outside with a nice big fire, some candles and some bad telly. And a drop of wine.

Dressed for Distress

It seems to be that time of year again. Time for the Christmas Party. Ours is being very generously organised by our boss at one of his hotels, free of charge to all staff members. Pretty good deal considering so many companies have cancelled theirs. In fairness we had a very good season, so it seems only appropriate to treat everybody to a night out after all this years' hard work. And work hard we did, but it has been well worth it I must say. Let's see if I still feel the same way after Monday's monster do at my work but more on that later. Let's just say I have so many paper cuts, hay fever and other hamper-related injuries I think I need to take some time off just to recuperate before I start again.

Anyway, Christmas Party. And I have no idea why I've felt the need to capitalise Party, either. The usual panic has started to settle in. The Dress Issue. I have a vague idea what to wear, I've even found this lovely dress on Marks & Spencer website and was thinking of wearing that with black tights and grey ankle boots. The problem is that I don't know if they have that dress in the M&S in Galway, so I really don't want to get my hopes up too much. I had planned on going to Galway on a little shopping spree on Tuesday with Teresa, but the roads were still like an ice rink, we postponed it to next week. Another possible issue is that I will end up looking like a bag of spanners once I put the dress on. Has happened before, folks, just to let you know. Morto. I found the perfect pair of boots in the New Look website but once again, it's the UK website and I have no way of knowing for sure whether of not they stock them in Ireland before I actually get there. Please please please, get your asses into gear and get your Irish sites up and running, I have a credit card that is in need of abusing!!

So, ideally I would walk into the shops, pick up those items and they would look good, yes? Obviously the dress needs accessorising, I'm thinking sparkly black and silver; clutch, belt, and all the cheap jewelry Penneys has to offer! That is the plan and the ideal situation for me to find myself in. However, these things usually never go to plan so I need a plan B. Which I don't have. So the "bag of spanners" may well be the look I'm going for on the night. I suppose after a copious amount of Morgan's Spiced rum and coke (the drinking kind, not the snorting kind) I won't care what I look like. There's also going to be karaoke, I hear. Awesome.

There are a few people at work I haven't seen on a night out. I cannot wait to see our Finance Manager let her hair down. She recently told me she'd been to a christening and had had a good 20, maybe 25 bottles of beer on the night. She'd gone home, gotten to bed and felt the room spin faster and faster as she laid down on the bed, beside her snoring husband. She had quite unceremoniously leaned over the side of the bed, gotten sick on the floor and flopped back down thinking to herself "I'll clean that up tomorrow". She woke up the next morning to a particularly hideous hangover and a smell wafting up from beside her bed so bad, she nearly got sick again. The smell was in no way made any better by the fact that the house has under-floor heating. I'm gagging as I'm typing this.

This was just to illustrate the type of people we're gathering together into a secure hotel environment, plying them with free food and wine, and making them sing karaoke. My boss said she wants cameras and camera phones banned from the party. She didn't particularly like the photos I put up on Facebook last year. They weren't even that bad, if I'm truly honest. Majority of them was taken early on in the night when everyone was still in a relatively clear state of mind. At least my drunken singing and trying to talk Kevin the Barman into joining me was never caught on any type of a camera. Not even a CCTV. I checked.