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This is my second Christmas I’m celebrating since moving to Johannesburg, and truth be told, it’s a far better one than last year in that I can actually celebrate a little without thinking that I don’t have a salary to spend… Last year this time I was still recovering from having my bank account cleared out thanks to ATM fraud.

I’m not with family today… rather, I will be seeing Rozz and Nick a little later today for lunch, then will probably go see a movie, then come home to the housemates and have dinner with them.

I cooked a nice Christmas Eve dinner for us last night:

Chicken, cooked in red wine, ginger and garlic… end result, chicken that tastes really nice and non-chicken-like that is tender enough to cut with your fork.

Add to that, my trademarked cream mushrooms (cooked in garlic, lemon juice and cream with lemon pepper), gnocchi, pineapple chunks, gherkin chunks and a little blue cheese and you have a very very rich and aromatic meal.

I also made my idea of Christmas in a Cup:

Melt some bournville cocoa chocolate, add cinnamon and sugar and some Amaretto, let that mix, then add milk and coffee to taste and serve in a mug.

After dinner, the girls decided it was time to get online and hit the dating sites to see who was lonesome on Christmas Eve. Tarryn had her laptop and Sharlene commandeered mine, leaving me to amuse myself by watching and listening to their reactions as they browsed the sites.

One particular trend I noticed was that Tarryn would browse some poor sod’s profile, commenting on the negative aspects of said person, or photos, etc in the profile only to exclaim, “Ooh, he’s a doctor!” a few seconds later, adding what would have been a non-candidate to her favourites list.

This continued till the early hours of this morning, by which time my sides were hurting from all the laughter.

Ah well, it was good fun. And harmless too. It’s also nice to come home to people I can relax around and relate to on some level. With some of the previous housemates, I have not had that luxury. Now, I look forward to coming home and hearing the antics of the girls. It’s certainly entertaining to see the chaos they cause in their own lives.

Any folks, hope you have a good and safe festive season further. Let’s all try and make it through the rest of the year and see in 2008 without incident, and make it a better year than 2007.

2007 was a tough year… let’s hope 2008 bears the fruits of our labours in 2007.