As I write this, we’re all enjoying a bit of ‘down time’. Quite frankly, that’s what the past few days have been all about. I cooked up enough of a feast on Christmas Eve to get us through to (hopefully) tomorrow, so I’ve been able to relax reading and playing board games and watch some…
I’m an advocate for giving experiences as gifts, and this year I went pretty big (definitely a very special treat) and bought the family Gold Class tickets to see a little movie you might’ve heard a bit about – Star Wars: The Force Awakens. My own feelings for the movie can be summed up in…
The above picture was taken at the Netflix Stream Team Christmas party the other day. On a gorgeous summer day by the beach, we talked about some of our favourite programs from this year – top of my list was the terrific series Jessica Jones. If you have Netflix and haven’t seen it yet, do…
It’s Christmas Card Challenge time! If you’re unfamiliar with my annual fundraising drive, let me explain. Since 2008, I’ve held a digital ‘Christmas Card Challenge’: I donate the amount of a postage stamp*, which is what I would’ve spent if I was sending an actual card, for each individual commenter who has left a comment…
As you’ve no doubt determined by the title, this regular update is late. I want to give a robust and totally understandable excuse, but the simple truth is I don’t have one. It’s not that I don’t have anything to celebrate – quite the contrary, it was my birthday yesterday! There are just a few…
As you would’ve seen in my post the other day, I worked with Officeworks to give the ‘Gift of Creativity’ this Christmas – a handmade advent calendar for my children. It’s now time for you to get creative! How would you go about giving the ‘Gift of Creativity’ for a loved one this…
Read / December 1st, 2015
For the true crime person in your life (that’s me), this new book about Jack the Ripper, They All Love Jack by Bruce Robinson, has just been released. It’s a monster in size, meticulously researched, so you’ll be getting your money’s worth. Whether or not you agree with Robinson and who he believes is Jack the…
I’ve always loved advent calendars. As far as I can recall, they were pretty modest when I was a child, without chocolate incentives or something of the sort. Maybe my parents didn’t like them much! Instead, in our family, we recycled the same advent calendar year after year and I would look forward to…
We had guests this week – my mother and sister were in town and we had birthday party/early Christmas festivities. You might think it would feel weird to be celebrating early, but it was lovely. The kids, as you’d expect, were very happy with the arrangement (“two Christmases!”). We did lots of things, including…
