My dads easy, one of those calanders with stupid comments and quotes for each days (they are in cards and usually Simpsons or Dilbert or something)

Brothers are another story altogether (He is allergic to chocolate and my mum has already bought him jelly babies)...I think I'll buy him a cuddly toy squirrell, it'll keep him amused longer than anything else.

Hermia, how about making a T-shirt or a poster out of a photo of your father and Baby Dawn?

I know what you mean with presents for men- random books are often good, but then its hard to know which ones...If I had a job I'd be sorely tempted to go on a Pratchett spree, but alas, I can't afford that. Too many relatives.
Strasbourg is makign the Christmassyness very fun though- I feel like a little kid in the market, everything is all sparkly! Cathal was over not long ago, just as it was opening, so that was a nice weekend of being scarily couple-y (kept getting reminders of my parents at markets...scary but fun)
So far everyone back in el Dublino is getting Gingerbread men; even if they don't like to eat the things, at least they're purty.

oh, and Happy St. Nicholas' Day (yesterday)
one question- there appears to be a rooster ON TOP of the Cross on the church next door- am I the only person who finds that a little bit odd?

Well I'm back and totally exhausted... My flight got in at 6am this morning, I got a little sleep on the plane and about 2 hours when I got home but then my mum decided to ring at 9am and that was the end of that...

The conference was good, the weather was bad and I got a very good peice of info that should see my PhD go along swimmingly in the next stage...

I'm afraid I'm too tired to catch up with too many of the threads that have exploded since I left.

Welcome back, Spiky. Once you get caught up on your sleep you'll have some real good reading to do.

I am sleeping in my chair and Jon has been shaking it so I will go to bed and snore there, I am going to miss him when he leaves with his wide load and new trailer on his way to the San Francisco area tomorrow. I get the reward for working an extra day last week this weekend, I get an actual three day weekend! Maybe Christmas will get to my house yet.

My nephew was supposed to start his jail term today but it was delayed, he has had trouble remembering he should behave himself now that he is a father. So he'll be sleeping in jail and his girlfriend will be taking him to his work and bringing him back to jail for however long he's going to have to serve. He's been spending the last few weeks doing things for my folks. His house is about three blocks up the street from the jail. That is a big reason my parents want to spend a month away from home this winter.

I hope he gets a clearer picture of how the world actually works during his confinement and I hope his girlfriend proves she is worth the wait. She had a big hand in what happened and if she is still in the picture after this she'll have proven herself and if she doesn't stick around she'll have proven something else.

The family is finally figuring out when we might get together to celebrate Christmas, it might be the day after Christmas and then we don't know if we will get to have our little guy with us, and we know we won't get to have his dad. Or his uncle from North Pole,AK. Pretty soon all the kids will be off doing their things and we will wait with bated breath until we can see them again. I totally missed seeing Michael this last time he was home on leave, damn cellulitis. I would have loved to see him with his first nephew.

Welcome back, Spiky! Tamyra, sorry about your family's odd circumstances - I hope you get to see as many of your kin as possible during the holidays! (correction: as many of your kin as you'd LIKE to see )

It's getting harder and harder to drive around here! Not so much because of the snow (my hopes of getting a day off work were sorely busted!), but because I take the back roads home, and every house there is currently competing madly for the Most Overdecorated Front Yard EVER!!! title. The darkness makes it worse - all those Christmas lights!!!! - it's like driving through night-time Disneyworld! I have to nail my eyeballs to the windshield to keep my attention on the road :p

I know what you mean! There's a village just outside my town where every household does that, and people actually drive out there just to look. I like the pretty lights, but the larger-than-life plastic Father Christmases and even-larger-than-that reindeer are a bit much for me.

It's a great idea, but not for my dad. My dad is very definitely not sentimental about these things, he'd probably just find it slightly embarrassing! It's so going to be the book tokens again...

I have my work do on tonight. My boss asked me to book his favourite Chinese Restaurant instead of going somewhere for the usual turkey dinner.

My Department is really top heavy management wise – infact I am the only pleb out of the 12 people that were supposedly going.

There’s now going to be 6 – I don’t even think that my boss is going, as he went home sick earlier on today. I avoided last year’s effort as I told everyone it was too far away for me to go. – Plus the fact that I was just not bothered …

This year I thought I’d give it a go-

I really should have thought harder about that idea. - I don’t think that I can hack the back-stabbing that these people will be doing about others tonight- about others in the Dept and about people within the rest of the organisation. My general Paranoia will be extreme- and that only means one thing. Incessant talking from me. How I wish I could be the sort of person who goes quiet when their embarrassed/nervous. No I talk non- stop and usually end up saying something totally stupid.

This is going to be excruciating but I can’t back out now

Wish me luck! :roll:

I have my work do tonight also.

In terms of backstabbing, I think there's only a couple of people that aren't going, so the range of topics will be narrow... I deal with it by keeping quiet, taking mental notes, then using the info to my advantage

I'm going back home for the weekend. I'm redecorating my room, and my dad was nice enough to paint the room for me already. Yay! I just hope he only painted it white, I'd like to do the coloured parts myself to make sure they're where I want them.
Also, I finished the plans I was paid to make. It was redecorating a living/dining room, and I really think I did a good job, I even made some 3d renderings, which I'll try to put on the net shortly. It was the first redecorating that I actually got paid for, and it feels GOOD! The stuff I do for my boss doesn't really allow me to use my own imagination and ideas.

On another note, my rommate had a 'talk' with (better put at) me, where she told me that she wasn't my friend even if I thought so, which really did hurt my feelings badly, after knowing her for 6,5 and living together for 2,5 years, sharing the good and the bad.
She also told me some other things she thought about me that I still haven't digested really. Some I really have to admit (although I hate to, but I need to be honest) she was right, at least partly, while others only showed me that she doesn't know me as well as I'd thought. It made me run away and cry to another friend and left the feeling of the cold war in the flat.
Oh well, live and learn! :roll:

Well, I'm off, hoping that my room back home will turn out to be as beautifull as I always knew it could be.
Everyone, have a great weekend!

Christmas shopping is complete! Huzzah!

I have almost completed my christmas shopping which makes me very happy. I only have one more present to buy which will probably give me more hassle than any of the others i've bought.

So there must be a load of cars lacking hub caps after your 'shopping' trip.

Where's the "Abomination Thread" when you need it? Nah, I'm too lazy to search. I could have needed it, though, after finding my lost favoutite CDs after months of searching, only to find out someone had engraved their life story in Egypt Hieroglyphs on its backside. Arvö Pärt's "Te Deum" just scratched to death in my CD player.

My condolences, Hsing. Having stuff turn up ruined is just awful. I did get the info and Santa is ready, but I'm still procrastinating about Christmas.

I have a feeling it's going to take at least three days to get all the celebrating done. We'll end up out at the farm, Dad and Mom are just not in the mood for traveling to Sauk Rapids. I just hope my sister can come up, too. I want to watch her daughter beat my brother at Cribbage.