Low-key Christmas prep

This is not a great picture, I know, but it gives you a little flavor of the Christmas preparations around here.  It's a big wire Christmas tree that lights up in various colors and swirly patterns at night.  At the bottom you can see the red letter boxes (like the old British ones) where little kids are lining up for a direct conversations with Santa, who must be somewhere remote, like at the North Pole or in the nearby Chaffer's Dock apt. lobby, eating one of Martin Bosley's famous bacon butties, served up at the Sunday morning market.  (They smell great, but we are stuck on the crepes, made by a guy with an authentic-sounding French accent.)  Anyway, parents are lounging around on these yellow, green and blue beanbag chairs while the kids are waiting to transmit their wish lists to the jolly old elf.  I could have used a beanbag back in the day when we were waiting on the girls, at least one of whom had such severe Santaclaustrophobia that she would never talk to him, even after all of that standing in line.

Christmas seems a little lower key around here in general, with tales of barbecues and the beach rather than baking turkeys and huddling around the fire.  I have a little bit of ambivalence about this.  I kind of like not having Christmas quite so "in your face" all the time.  But I am going to miss some things, I can tell:  like the meeting's Simple Christmas craft-making day, caroling, and the Christmas Eve night candlelight service especially.  I hear there will be some carol-singing on the waterfront though.

It's been quiet.  John's colleagues had their Christmas "do" at a restaurant Friday night, complete with Christmas crackers.  We all had paper crowns and little gifts from inside.  By far the favorite were the little men that looked kind of like Spiderman which stick to windows (or beer pitchers) then sort of climb down.

  On Sat. we bought a tiny Christmas tree and cooked burgers with a couple who will be leaving to go home to Virginia in January.  While we were sitting outside, we experienced a quite perceptible earthquake (5.7) which was felt from Picton (north tip of the South Island) and which broke some windows on the waterfront here.  It felt kind of like being on a train that was starting, then stopping.  The earth just kind of rolled.  It lasted about 20 seconds, just long enough to think, "What the...?"  Maybe the locals know what it is right away.  Anyway, that's quite enough for firsthand experience for me if anyone's listening to my druthers.

Tom and Janine are due in tonight at midnight.  After four (!) days of sun last week, it's supposed to rain pretty much the whole time they're here.  The fridge isn't working.  Some kind of Murphy's law thing....