Christmas Prep.

The London tree decos arrived this week, and were quite the hit.

I remember very well getting a chain letter when I was still in primary school. I can only have been 12 years old and full of the optimisim or maybe stupidity of youth, but in I dived. I wrote the requisite letters and sat back and waited for my letter box to overflow.

Nada, nothing, fuck all.

Yep it was a learning opportunity. And perhaps it was the birth place of the cynicism that leads to a barked 'WHAT' when I answer the phone to a number I don't know.

I try very hard to almost never believe the promises of strangers, but actually I am still pretty gullible. When someone says they are gonna do something, I just believe they are gonna do it. Unless of course there is some crazy looking bloke pushing the buzzer at the front gate who tells me that I have won a gizzilion million dollars and all I need to do to collect it is to let 100 people move into my spare room and grin widely as I sit amid their fart clouds all the while I feed 'em up and keep 'em entertained with a stand up routine delivered in Russian. Only then perhaps would I wonder if there was any truth to the yarn.

So this week when a mate put up a secret santa sort of chain letter thing on Facebook, well I jumped in. Actually it took me a minute or so cos I spent time reminiscing about the whole primary school episode, and rather than be pissed off, I enjoyed recalling the kids I knocked around with and the fun we had. The grandie's last few days of primary school might have been the impetus for all this memory swirling.

Anyway, jump in I did. It's all been a bit frantic cos I had to learn how to do stuff and then I found a website that probably everyone already knows about, called ETSY and I spent a lovely little while having a search through handmade stuff and arty bits and pieces and chose something I liked a lot for a complete stranger and and filled in the paper work to make sure that it's delivered to her before christmas.

It made me happy to do this silly thing.

It doesn't matter if my letter box stays empty, cos it makes me smile thinking about a stranger opening her parcel, and I really hope that she likes her bit of silliness, and I like the idea that craft's woman has made a sale which she otherwise would not have.

BaaHumBug might be tattooed where the sun don't shine but this opportunity to a be Santa without having to wear that ridiculous fucking red suit is like waving tinsel and singing a round of Jingle Bells. Yep it got me in the Chrissie spirit, so the tree's up and I am getting sorted with lists for parcels even if I haven't got ANY yet.

There's a little plan in my head for next week, so I am well on my way.

Ta Da!