Gearing up for Santa Season

It always happens; every year, without fail. I start thinking about writing my Christmas cards at the end of November, approximately 6 weeks after the first supermarket Chrissie decorations go up, and end up finally hauling my bee to grab some discount cards about a week before the Holy Night. I've realised this is because I have a rebellious brain. When the responsible Left Hemisphere starts with the reminders, the Right side goes into defying mode, filling my head with other crap so I forget what my responsibilities were.

I haven't written on this blog for a long time. The reason is that I was busy having a handful of nervous breakdowns. This year can NOT go to hell fast enough, in my bitter opinion. To begin with, I've been unemployed for a YEAR. So whoever thinks that's just not possible in the Lucky Country and only in places like Greece, go tell that to the next person you see delivering junk mail at 5am on a Thursday morning. Maybe it will be me and I will hit you in the teeth with a rolled up newspaper.

Secondly, about 5 people I knew really well died. One of them was my beloved uncle. He missed his birthday, Christmas and his name day early in January. Although I'm glad he will be celebrating in real style up there in the Halls of Glory, I still can't believe he's gone and it has devastated his family and my family, who were his best friends.

Thirdly, our cat died. He'd been our only pet (apart from a canary we had a few years ago who didn't last long, no surprise; if I had been a bird and locked in a cage I would have offed myself) and been a loving part of our family for 14 years. He was irreplaceable. I know people often say your first pet is the hardest to get over but none of us wants to get another kitten all the same.

I could go into great detail about all the other reasons this year has totally sucked but I'm pissing enough people off with my negativity around here already. Why not time for a change? Haha. Suffice to say that whenever I thought the pressure couldn't get any worse, it did. Whenever I thought I couldn't live through more shit, and didn't want to, I did. That's when I hate that thing called resilience. Some people thrive on it. I hate its guts. I just want someone to oil my squeaky hinge regularly, preferably before it even occurs to me that it might squeak. I live in The Lucky Country right? Let's get some service over here for the obnoxious, spoiled Melbournite! Chop chop!

Finally, I will close by saying what 2 things redeemed this year for me. The first was the blessed weather. I felt like I'd gone back in time 25 years to when we had frequent rains, cool changes galore and gentler sunshine. The merciless November heatwaves of last year and the horrid spring weather of '08 steered clear of us this year, praise the Lord. It hasn't gone over 32 degrees so far, and most days have been under 27, with a lot more moisture. I like!

But the best thing that happened this year was my best friend gave birth to her first child, a little, long-anticipated girl. She's beautiful and clever and she has brought some joy into our lives. I will choose to remember 2010 for her.

Merry Christmas.