a very munkey christmas

Just dropping in to say a brief belated MERRY CHRISTMAS to all.

The night of the 22nd was the work Christmas BBQ - a much classier affair then years previous, mostly due to our wise hiring during the year of an ex-chef. The night was long and exceedingly messy, especially after one of my work-mates shared around one of his *special* cigarettes.

Madame Mu organised an evening for the gang at Sippers on Friday night, which consisted of fantastic food and wine. It was a wonderful evening with some of my favourite peoples on the planet... and was also a very good excuse for Moodles and Snazzles to show off their lovely, witty American boyfriends and make those single members of our gang green with envy.

Christmas Eve was the 50th Birthday of Mother Gomati. Happy Birthday to an incredible lady who I came to know virtually by chance (or, more accuratrely, by the clever conniving of Mme Mu). After those festivities (involving more great food and wine - are we detecting a pattern here?) I trundled off to my family home for the Festival of Christmas. We watched Ray Martin patronise his way through the Carols; I took a well-timed cigarette-break as soon as Daryl Somers walked onstage. Then we did all the Santa stuff with Ms Cait - putting out apples for the reindeer and shortbread and milk for the jolly fat man himself.

Christmas day was spent at the home of my aunt Ms Sheila. The usual gorging on food and drink ensued. The strangest occurence of the day appeared inside a Christmas cracker. My cousin Jodi received as her cracker-toy: a keyring in the shape of a love-heart. Nothing too strange about that, but the picture in the frame was of NYC's late WTC Twin Towers. Very odd, and kind of creepy.

The post-dinner evening lull was overcome by the annual tradition of giving anonymous *silly-presents*. I received a skill-game for four players, which deals out an electric shock to the person who is slowest on the button. We're talking an ACTUAL electric shock which makes you squeal and jump and leaves your hand tingling afterwards. Kind of sadistic, but strangely addictive. My secret present for Cousin Mark was a pair of those giant rubber hands/gloves that make explosive noises when you punch something. As predicted, he and his two brothers (all over 30, I might add) had a wonderful time pounding the crap out of each other. They also received four high-powered water-pistols, which led to an all out water war among the whole family. Fun fun fun. My personal favourite silly-gift was a small green plastic turtle with flashing lights, which wheeled around the floor inexplicably playing "Barbie Girl", periodically firing a small white egg from a hatch in its rear end. Bizarre and wonderful.

As the night rolled on, I drank more and more but strangely wasn't getting drunk (have I built up a resistance?). As talk turned to Mark's regular bladder-accidents when drunk, and the "ping-pong lady" show Sheila and Ian witnessed in Bangkok (yes, it is exactly what the dirtiest part of your mind is imagining), I realised it was high time for me to be in bed.

I have spent much of today cramming as much of my music collection as will fit, onto my brand-new 5Gb MP3 Player, courtesy of patermunkey. Hurrah! I shall very soon be jetting off to sunny, boozy Northern Queensland with my beloved ladies. We will be seeing in the New Year up there.

SO... Adieu to you all for this year! May the rest of your holiday-season be safe and love-filled. I shall return to the blogosphere in 2006. Looking forwartd to inflicting my ramblings on you all next year, and for many more to come.

~~~~~~~