Kelly's World

Photo credit: OSUBeaver13

So the count down to Christmas has begun. In just over a month it will be that time of the year, the one that all the shops try to convince us that it’s all about the presents you give. Not for me. I know it sounds cliche, but I just love Christmas because of the family gatherings. My mother’s side of the family is quite extensive, and every year we try to get together for a big feast and generally spend some time together. I love my family, and I would be devastated to not spend Christmas with them.

But I’m getting off topic here.

One of my 52 in 52 things is to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas. If you’re not familiar with the song, here’s a cool Destiny’s Child version that’s basically the same thing:

No matter what version of the song you listen to, it’s basically about listing what presents they received from their true love. However, I don’t plan on insisting that I receive presents each day in the lead up to Christmas. For me, it’s about giving, therefore I’ll be celebrating by spoiling my true love, and giving him something special in the 12 days leading up to Christmas.

There are quite a few logistical challenges involved. The biggest one is that the nature of his job means the time we get to spend together is going to be varied and irregular. There might even be days when physically it’s just impossible to get some time alone. This means I need to find a way to ensure that he gets something without the need for my presence. These ones will have to be material gifts, something I’ve planned in advance (not to mention given him strict instructions he’s not allowed to open the present until that day).

I also don’t intend for this to be an expensive exercise, nor a materialistic one. So unlike the lyrics in the Destiny’s Child song, my true love won’t be receiving keys to a CLK Mercedes. He probably wouldn’t fit anyway (downside of being so tall).

Thus the question now remains, what do I give him?

I’m thinking that for some of the presents they’ll be along the lines of “services”, like a cooked breakfast/dinner that he wasn’t expecting, a back massage etc. For the days I can’t be there or our time together is limited I want to have some nice little gifts to give him, something that will make him happy. It’s going to take some serious thinking, as he’s not one to say “I want xyz”. I’m going to really have to pay attention to him, as well as use my knowledge from the past 6 months of dating to recall the small things that made him happy.

Have you ever celebrated the 12 days of Christmas before? If so, what presents did you give out? If not, are there any other Christmas traditions that you do every year?

A month after we started dating, C decided to go and have a birthday. Being completely infatuated with him (still am, and those that follow me on twitter would understand if I inserted the hash tag #lovedupkellyisgross right here) I decided I had to get the most kickass present ever. We both shared a love of live sport, and given the NRL grand final was coming, after a quick chat with a mate I decided to buy him a ticket to the final. The catch was he would have to go with two of my friends and myself, as well as stay in a hotel and have a long weekend away. I know, horrible right?

After a long wait, we finally got to spend that weekend away together. The entire weekend can be summed up with one word:

Excellent.

The actual weekend started on Friday night with C’s housewarming party. After an inital hiccup, the evening panned out well and I had a great time. Possibly a bit *too* good a time as I threw up twice in the morning before boarding the plane to Sydney. I also couldn’t handle the smell or sight of food until 5.30pm that evening. C struggled to get out of bed at all, and nearly missed the plane! When my friends arrived to pick us up on the way to the airport C was still in the bathroom, having only just managed to climb out of bed. In the end, worried about getting to the airport in time to check in we opted to leave him there and took off to the airport so at least we could check in. That probably sounds worse than it was, as we didn’t exactly ditch him; we’d arranged with one of his housemates to get dropped off. The plan was that we could just get all of us checked in, then hopefully he would still arrive in time to get his bags checked in, otherwise it was still small enough to take as a carry on. I couldn’t be too hard on C though, even if he tends to run late quite a bit. Some of my best mates would vouch for the fact that I used to run late regularly, though I’ve gotten a lot better at it.

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I’m a sucker for lists. I write lists when I get on a housecleaning frenzy, or have a lot of tasks to do, and I re-write my to do list every morning at work. I’m a list addict.

Likewise, when I’m going away on holidays I make a list. It might be the most basic of lists, but I still need to write it down. OCD?

This morning I started my list for this coming weekend. So far it’s not very long:

Gadget geek much?

I honestly don’t expect I’m going to take much. We fly down Saturday morning, back on Monday afternoon, so really I only need 2 – 3 different outfits, pyjamas and toiletries right? There’s probably something more I’m forgetting here, but whatever. The camera is a “must have” for me for the weekend though, as I definitely want to document this weekend as best I can. After all, you guys want to read about it, right…? Right?

Ooh, sudden brain fart! Maybe I should write “warm jacket and poncho” to the list, given the fun weather that’s ahead.

What’s your “must have” when you go for a weekend away?

As a child, I was subjected to a lot of american sitcoms, like Married with children, Roseanne, Home Improvement etc. One thing shared by each of these shows is they all consisted of families with kids, and at least once a year they had Halloween specials. As a child I REALLY wanted to celebrate Halloween, but since it was traditionally an American thing the most we ever did was trick-or-treating a few times. I never attended any serious dress up parties and the parents never really got involved beyond dressing up the kids. My “halloween” consisted of an hour where my mum would humour me by helping me dress up, collect candy, let me binge eat the candy, then attempt to put me to bed (I was way too hyped up on sugar). When I got older, one year my mother offered the kids some Jenny Craig popcorn (that was hilarious) since she didn’t have anything else in her cupboards, which showed just how seriously our neighbourhood took the occasion.

So this year, I’m going all out.

My housemate and I decided we’re going to host a party, and it’s going to be awesome. It’s going to be a dress-up party, and since my housemate and I are hosts we figure that we’re going to have to be ultra impressive with our costumes, just to make sure we set the mood. Here’s what I’m currently thinking for my own outfit:

Because there's devil horns on top it's apparently the devil's wife

Gothic ragdoll

I thought originally I wanted to go with the first one, after all it’s incredibly grandiose. No better way to remind everyone I’m the host when you look that formal, and it’s completely unlike me since I never dress up. My definition of formal is something other than a hoody or singlet with my jeans.On the other hand, the gothic ragdoll one just looks like you could do a lot more with in the way of makeup and special effects. I really don’t know – what do you all think?

As for special effects and props, we currently have these ideas:

• A fog machine (OF COURSE – it’s mandatory, and way more cheaper than I ever expected)
• Writing on the bathroom mirrors with lipstick, something alone the lines of “I know what you did last summer” or “die”
• Spider confetti
• Light up ghosts
• A zombie in the garden that’s motion detecting, so will freak out guests as they arrive
• Purchasing some dry ice, making up a big bowl of punch then putting it in a bigger cauldron-type pot with the dry ice so it looks like a proper witches cauldron
• Black balloons outside

There’s a lot of cool stuff to be found on ebay, so it’s just a matter of my housemate and I really setting a budget, planning for it, and ordering it. I also want to try experimenting with some foods and cocktails. I saw a cool recipe to make shortbread fingers that look like they’ve been ripped out of a hand, and if I can make some cool eyeball ice cube things that would be pretty awesome!

As for music and entertainment, I plan on having horror movies playing on the tv at home. Psycho, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th series etc. I know I’ll also be playing “Monster Mash” and “Thriller” on the stereo, but definitely need to research more “scary” songs (feel free to suggest some).

I love the Monster Mash, it wouldn’t be Halloween without it! Here’s a cool version of the clip with the super scary (ahem) Goolies!

My boyfriend, nicknamed on my blog as C, is 6ft 8 so I’m trying to convince him to dress as Lurch from the Addam’s family. Given he has the height and the super deep voice, if he was to answer the door and say “you raaaannnggg” it would be hilarious! I think he’d also pull off a brilliant Frankenstein if he opted to go in that direction.

So readers, what do you think? Which costume of the above should I go, or can you think of something better? Do you have any suggestions for food or drink I could make? Have you ever attended a Halloween party and have an awesome story to share?

I’m currently in the process of blogging my holiday to Melbourne, which will be backdated to the days of the actual holiday. This means they won’t be the most recent posts, and you may possibly miss them altogether.

As such, I’m posting the links here for you to bring them to your attention. I hope you enjoy reading about my holiday!

Melbourne Day 1

Melbourne Day 2 (Part 1)

Melbourne Day 2 (Part 2)