Christmas fun and games

Good grief this week is dragging on! Maybe it's because it's been so unproductive. The morning job is quiet at the moment, and although the freelance stuff carries on, I'm waiting on info from one or two clients, so my hands are tied on some projects.

At least I've been making lots of jewellery for my Christmas open day on 5 Dec (eeep - so close now). I'm starting to get nervous about that. I just hope that the other crafters coming to sell their wares make good money and that those coming along to buy find something they like.

At the moment, I have my jewellery stall (I'm also selling gift bags, homemade yummies and some kiddies stocking fillers), a lady selling pewter crafts (she's without a job at the moment, so I hope her stuff gets snapped up), someone selling lingerie, a friend with Miglio jewellery and Faithwear clothing and a children's home selling donated wine, photo albums and other bits and bobs (also hope they do especially well).

I was hoping for more crafters / sellers, but I think we'll have a nice range anyway, although there's not much to cater for men's presents. Once again, in a shameless plug... if anyone's keen to come, either to sell or to browse, please mail me at doodlesofajourno dot gmail dot com.

I haven't forgotten that I promised pics of the jewellery. I just need to recharge my camera battery after snapping away at the carols evening.

My head is definitely in Christmas space. I've done about half of the gift shopping. Unfortunately, that was the cheaper half. I have to wait to make some money with the jewellery sales before I can buy TSC and my parents' presents. But almost everyone else is done. I'm looking forward to next week's life group, although it's the final one for the year. We are having a bring and braai social and will do the annual present swap game, which is great fun and totally hilarious. If you're having a large gathering, it's definitely a good ice breaker.

The mad gift swap game

Each person has to bring a wrapped unisex gift costing no more than a certain amount. We've said R50 for our life group (the fact that it has to be suitable for a guy or a girl makes it challenging). Loads of people do boring presents like boxes of chocolates, but there are always some awesome and strange gifts. Last year someone brought a mini basketball hoop with a squishy little basketball. The girls all thought it was ridiculous, but the boys were ready to fight for it!

Everyone then sits in a circle, with the gifts in the middle. The person organising (and refereeing!) counts how many people there are and writes out the numbers on scraps of paper. So if there are 15 people, I'll write out 1, 2, 3... all the way up to 15. The paper scraps then get put in a hat / bowl / whatever and each person draws a number.

Whomever draws number 1 gets to pick and unwrap a present from the pile. The person with number 2 on his / her piece of paper can then either choose another present or steal number 1's gift. If he does the latter, number one gets to pick a new gift.

Then it's number 3's turn. He/she can either steal number 1 or number 2's gift or choose a new present from the pile. The game carries on like this until everyone has had a turn.

The interesting twist is that each gift can only be stolen three times. So the third person to steal it will get to keep it. It gets quite entertaining trying to remember how many times a particular gift has been stolen. And it's always a good idea to have some extra gifts on hand in case someone has forgotten to bring one.

Anyone else have suggestions for party games with a Christmas theme we could try with our group?

Christmas presents and more plagiarism

This morning I see that another one of my press releases has been published online by the same sneaky journo who took credit for the last one. Once again, she has used her name on stuff I wrote. Sigh... I doubt I will ever be ok with this aspect of PR. Anyway... onto a nicer topic: presents.

I love shopping for gifts. Love, love, LOVE it. I can spend hours trawling the mall or market for something perfect for the person I'm buying for, and usually start my Christmas shopping in September. This year, however, I lacked money due to needing to fund a new house and various other expenses, and am only just starting the shopping now.

Seeing I don't have a 13th cheque like I did last year, the gifts have to be less expensive, but I still want to get TSC something special. Specifically, a table tennis set.

Why? Because that's what he wants, for some odd reason. He could happily play ping pong for hours on end, and while I don't understand his fascination with it (I can play for 45 min tops before I'm bored out of my skull), I'd much rather buy him a table tennis set than a Playstation.

He has been nagging me to get table tennis since we moved to Joburg, and I promised him that when we moved into the new house and had more space, I'd buy him a table.

Problem is, I can't afford it. I have to buy presents for my family, his family, our friends and my work colleagues (not to mention the various secret Santa stints), plus an anniversary present for him (for next Tuesday). We also need so much stuff for the new house (and by need, I do not mean the new carpet I'd love to buy for the floor in the living room or the gorgeous scatter cushions I spotted at Boardmans - I mean stuff like cleaning equipment and other such joy-inspiring purchases). And we need to pay our house-sitter while we're away, and keep some money stashed for petrol and spending for the holidays.

So, TSC is unfortunately not getting a table tennis set for Christmas. The cheapest fold-up one with wheels I can find is R1 500 and I just can't stretch my budget that far on one present.

I was feeling miserable about the fact that he wouldn't be getting what he wanted until I remembered that as well as space for ping pong tables and the like, the man now also has space for his all-time favourite thing to collect: TOOLS.

It's unbelievable - he can get as excited about an orbital sander as most women would get about being given six pairs of Jimmy Choo shoes or a shopping spree in Paris. In fact, if you had to ask him to choose between a lump sum to spend on power tools or an all-expenses-paid cruise along the coast on a five-star ship, he'd probably go for the former.

Men are so weird. So it's off to Builder's Warehouse for me this afternoon. In my stilettos. I always end up with about five store salespeople following me around asking if they can help. It's that obvious that I don't have a clue.

I leave you with this (old but awesome) video clip. Now this is entertaining table tennis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11O9IrG8zzg

"Why is it that weekends go by so fast?"

I find myself asking this question every Monday morning as I stumble out of bed and trip over one of my cats (they lie there on purpose, I tell you).

This weekend was good. My folks are back from their holiday and it sounds like they had a great time. We had dinner with them on Friday evening and they showed us all their photos. Jealousy! They brought us a beautiful hand-crafted blue glass bowl that I can't wait to display in the new house, and TSC got a gorgeous belt, some chocolate and a "funny" T-shirt very similar to this:

Unfortunately, none of the shirts they bought me really fit, but my mom found the cutest little brooch. Will have to take a pic and post it.

And my dad, who is the world's greatest car fanatic, gave the thumbs up on the repairs to my Ella*. Which is great, because he didn't actually know that aside from the bumper that got scraped in the pothole, I also had the left side of the car fixed where I scraped it on a pillar in the parkade. I figured that if he didn't notice, I was safe.

Little did I know that my mother had told him about the second incident! All that skulking around for nothing! What a waste of my talents in the sneakiness department.

Truth be told, I'm actually glad he knows. But he doesn't know that I know that he knows. Did you follow that?

Well, I just saw that I have an award from Kitty Cat (yay! Two awards in two weeks), so my Monday is ok thus far. Hope you all have a fabulous week!