Secretly Santa

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By agreement, our extended family Christmas festivities are hosted turn-and-turn-about at various family members’ homes. The host(ess) for the year generally decides on the lunch menu, orders the ham/turkey/other, and decides on a few other items to produce in-house. Then she recruits various family members assist with the rest of the catering in some way. Usually this involves someone being asked to bring some nibbles, a couple of people to bring salads, and one or two to get creative with desserts.

Everyone shares the load in some way and fine time is had by one and all. The day itself is usually full of noise and laughter, fun and frivolity. By the time we’ve enjoyed some snacks and a celebratory drink, had a swim and then worked our way through a long, lazy lunch, we’re all pretty much ready for a nap.

But wait… there’s still dessert to be conquered!

To give everyone some time to recover enough to enjoy the tasty treats on offer, this is when we usually get one or more of the youngsters to act as Santa and distribute the gifts. It tends to bump us all out of our food hangovers and generate some renewed interest – which we can then usually all sustain through dessert, coffee and eventual departure home to collapse in comfort.

Several years ago Boychilde came to me with an idea. He said he’d noticed that everyone was spending an awful lot of time and money running around buying gifts each year and that, as often as not, the gifts turned out to be things that the recipients didn’t really want – or already had. He wasn’t sure it was such a great plan and wondered what my thoughts were on introducing something different.

Although I genuinely appreciate the thought that goes into every gift I get, I definitely agreed and was on-side for a change of pace. The question then was how to change the system in such a way as to retain the happy Christmassey feel whilst simultaneously limiting expenditure, gift awkwardness and the headless-chook runaround of last minute gift gathering.

The idea of introducing something along the lines of a Secret Santa or Kris Kringel, where everyone in the extended family only bought – and received – one gift sounded like a plausible solution. The next step was to unleash the idea on the rest of the family. We thrashed out  a few more details and, rather to my surprise, the siblings, nieces and nephews all jumped on board with alacrity. I guess the timing was right for everyone.

As a group, we decided on the budget for the Secret Santa gifts, then agreed that it would be an even better idea we each come up with a list of three items to that set dollar value for their Santa to choose from. This way everyone’d get something they wanted… but they wouldn’t know exactly what until they opened their gift just before dessert-time. Perfect!

We got together for a pre-Christmas afternoon tea about a month before d-day, consumed fruit mince pies and each drew one of the lists out of a hat. Then it was up to each of us as to what we chose from that list. We’d each bring our wrapped mystery Santa-gift (for a specific individual) along on Christmas day, pop it under the tree anonymously, and wait for the before-dessert grand reveal.

And so a new family tradition was well and truly born. This year is our 10th Secret Santa family gathering (time flies!) and I’ve had fun with my Xmas shopping – which is still a refreshing change after years of dreading it! This year my niece and her daughters, with help from my sister and her family, is hosting the event – and it’s going to be fabulous.

Bring it on, Secret Santas 🙂

Time for knee(s) up

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Last weekend we took the parents up to Gallifrey Forrest Farm to commune with the wildlife (hens and geese and ducks and quail and guinea fowl and cats), and to marvel at the progress that’s been achieved on the propriety over the past 12 months. So many trees have been planted, projects started and others completed – it’s well worth marvelling over.

After tucking into a delicious afternoon tea of fresh fruit from the Swan Valley, along with soft and sticky chocolate brownies and cupcakes made by DaughterDearest, it was time for the grand tour. This is when things got unnecessarily interesting…

One of the less cat-aware visitors slid a door open to step outside, blithely oblivious to the streak of grey lighting headed his way. Cat#1, widely known for her uber-escapologist skills, made her usual flying dash for the door… and chaos ensued.

This cat is both much-loved and rather valuable breeding stock, so she’s never allowed outdoors other than on a harness and lead. So everyone converged on the escapey-cat, with loud cries of shut the door! and aaargh! and No, Cloud!. Since I was sitting closest to the door, I leapt to my feet to tackle said cat and/or shove the door closed. In my haste I managed to get my feet tangled in a little rug, conveniently placed just inside the door for people to wipe their feet on.

Chaos ramped up a notch as I crashed to the ground in spectacular fashion, landing solidly on the pointy bit of my right knee. Fortunately, I missed both cat and door – she’d leapt out of the way and the door had been slammed closed in the nick of time to thwart her escape attempt.

Once things settled down, the grand tour resumed – but it seemed wiser for me to stay put and tuck into the remaining chocolate brownies and a cup of restorative tea. My knee had started to swell quite alarmingly and, although the brownies and tea were lovely, the icepacks, anti-inflammatory gel and elevation helped not in the slightest.

By the time we were ready to leave it was pretty clear that walking up to the car was right out. After some conferring, K (the resident Eagle Scout) and Himself (my go-to guy in all things) came up with a cunning plan: a two-handed seat carry.

This involved positioning themselves one on each side of me, passing their arms behind and under my thighs, grasping each other’s wrists firmly, and then lifting me. In effect I was sitting balanced on their crossed over wrists, wedged up against their bodies. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was very effective.

In short order I was stashed in the vehicle and we were off on our hour-long journey back to Perth to drop off the parents, then on to the local hospital. There I spent four exceptionally long hours waiting (a lot), gritting my teeth (a lot), snivelling (far too much), undergoing triage (a fancy word for a first-stage medical assessment), being issued with paracetamol/codeine tablets for pain relief (eventually), examined and sent for x-rays.

In due course the attending physio informed me that I have a fractured patella. This, by the way, is a remarkably painful injury and one I whole-heartedly do not recommend putting on your bucket list!

I was fitted with a removable (hot, heavy, padded) leg brace to immobilise my knee and told that I’d need to be on crutches for a while. The physio recommended a lot of lying down and that I should keep the weight off my knee for the next week. After that, she said, I’d be reassessed at the fracture clinic and we’d ‘go from there’ (whatever that means). Thinks wistfully of magic wands…

So far it’s been a long week (for everyone). My audiobook library is a little depleted, I’ve caught up on my current knitting projects, and discovered that sharing the bed with a couple of anxious dogs who want to be close all the time has its moments. All things considered, I think I’ll leave rescuing Miss Cloud to others in future! 😛

We did a good thing

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So many charitable organisations these days want detailed information from donors. This, of course, is so that they can encourage people to become repeat donors, to buy lottery tickets, to sponsor and support – on their terms.

In many cases, however, this ploy often has a negative effect on those self same donors. Many kind and helpful people end up with donor fatigue. We feel taken advantage of or harassed and many of us opt out of donating at all. But the thing is that many of us aren’t necessarily tired of donating or helping. In fact we’d love to.

But how do we help? Where can we give on our own terms, rather than on those imposed on us by one or other organization?

With Christmas on the horizon, I was thinking about all this quite a lot. Then, a few weeks ago, I found out about Manna’s Hampers for the Homeless initiative. It spoke directly to my ongoing concern that not everyone gets to eat every day, even in Australia.

The idea of providing some basic necessities for people in need had enormous appeal. So I put the suggestion out, asking people I know – and people they know – to consider stepping up and helping out, at whatever level they were comfortable with.

And you did.

Donations started to arrive on our doorstep a few days later and soon my study was overflowing with tins of baked beans and tuna, with toothpaste, biscuits, lollies and more. I’ve been both humbled and overwhelmed by the response.

Thank you. Thank you for letting me know how this has impacted on each of you. I agree that the stark contrast to our far more privileged lives is sobering – and the realization that our contributions will make a real difference to people’s lives is indeed heart-warming,

I thought you’d like to know that we surpassed our arbitrarily chosen target for donations by a goodly margin. Between us we gathered 15 complete hampers, as well as some carry-over items. Lolo Caseiro, the Kitchen Manager at Manna, and her son Kai helped me unload the boxes when I delivered them to the depot this morning. They were delighted with everything and assured me that it would all be used. They’ll be distributing 300 hampers to the homeless of Perth close to or on Christmas Day and our contributions will be included.

We did a good thing, folks.

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Lolo and Kai at Manna with our hamper contributions.

 

It’s the Season to be helpful

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Have you ever walked past a homeless person, perhaps in an arcade or in a bus station? And have you ever thought something along the lines of how hard their life must be compared to your own? I certainly have.

There is a fine line between living a life inside society and enjoying its privileges, and one lived having fallen through the cracks. Those cracks  must just seem to get deeper and deeper – and finding a way out could rapidly become insurmountably difficult. Or at least seems to be so when living it.

Perhaps it was thoughts like these that got me to start up our Foodbank charity food drive late last year. Since then we’ve generated a steady slow flame of community support, and delivering the accumulated goods to the Foodbank depot regularly every three months. It’s been a tangible way of helping those in need – and a mindful acknowledgment of how much we have by comparison to them.

This quarter we’ve decided to shift our focus slightly. We’ll be supporting the Manna Christmas Hamper for the Homeless project. Manna has been providing food for the homeless since its inception in 1996, when the founders drove past a group of homeless people taking shelter under a tree on a cold and rainy Perth afternoon. The group was still there hours later when they passed by again. So they went home and made them some soup.

From these gentle and kind beginnings grew an organisation that’s continued to gain momentum, providing hot meals and other simple home comforts to the needy and disadvantaged in Perth. The people for whom the cracks are widest.

This year, at a time when we all get together to celebrate family and friendship, to share gifts and food, I thought that perhaps we could all spare a thought – and a few items – to help them out.

So I invite you participate in our Christmas Hamper Food Appeal.

All it takes it to put together one or more hampers for the homeless and needy of Perth. The list that Manna provides is heartbreakingly simple, so much so that it brought me to tears when I read it. The ask is really so very small.

Why not join us in trying to make this a slightly jollier season for others?manna_hampers-for-the-homeless-2016

Please note: We’ll be delivering all hamper donations to the Manna depot at the end of the first week in December.

NaNoDreaming

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I’ve toyed with participatinnanoplanning_oct2016g in NaNoWriMo a number of times, but life has conveniently provided me with an ongoing multitude of excuses not to. But what all those excuses actually boil down to is that producing 50,000 words in 30 days simply sounds wayyyy too daunting to consider.

Then, a couple of weeks ago a friend sent me a message on Twitter: Hello! are you gonna #nanowrimo this year?

Bold writer that she is, she gave it a go in 2015 and reached her 50,000 word target on 30 November – the deadline. At the time I think I said something along the lines of  ‘Well done! I should’ve signed up too… maybe next year…’

But that was then and this is now… So sensible-me reply-tweeted: Heh – I think not. My greycells are still pulpy after #BlogJune, and that’s a much less intense project!

When we caught up for coffee and cake the following week, we talked about writing and plans and life – as usual – and she asked another curly question: Are you planning on writing another book?

My answer was much the same as the one to the NaNoWriMo question, but with more detailed excuses. In essence, I told her, I’m not sure I have either the subject matter or the commitment to launch into another big project.

As it turns out, the cosmos seems to have other plans…

This became clear a few days later when one of my favourite local librarians suggested I might like to attend a NaNoWrimo information evening. Just come along, she said. It’s part of the combined libraries Write Along the Highway programme and the first time we’ve been involved.

So I went – mostly as a gesture of solidarity and support but also because I was jut a little curious.

Somehow or other, for reasons still not quite clear to me, by the end of the session I found myself agreeing to jump on board the NaNo-wave. Of it’s own volition, my hand had sneaked up in answer to the question: So who’s gonna sign up to participate in NaNoWriMo this year?

How did that even happen!? 😛

50,000 words equates to 1,666.67 words each day. Since my blog posts are often around 800 words, I guess that’s a bit like two blog posts a day – or BlogJune on steroids. Hardly scary at all…

I guess my subconscious decided that since I work best under pressure (even if it’s self-imposed), it would provide me with some. Senisible-me is still kicking and screaming about it a bit, but she and my subconscious are slowly coming to an accommodation.

Since I also attended a (free) introduction to Scrivener at one of the libraries, perhaps I’ll try Scrivener-ing my way through November. The presenter, Natasha Lester, calls it ‘the best writing tool on the market‘ and her enthusiasm was very infectious… and I have had a copy of Scrivener sitting around for the last many months…

In short, I’m in. Although, as you may have gleaned, I’m both looking forward to and dreading 1 November. My goal is to reach the finish line with ta (very) rought first draft of an actual book. Then I can dither, procrastinate and deliberate over that for a number of more relaxing months. It certainly beats dithering over whether to start in the first place!