The Boxing Day blog

Ed: coda's photo's are available here, mine will be up soon.

People always say that Christmas is about family. Fair enough. I don't think it's ever really struck me as a family orientated thing to do. Something about living at home and seeing your family every day kind of reduces Christmas to just another meal at home. This Christmas was different though. It may not have been spent with family (a phone call had to suffice), but it was spent around really good friends, having a really good time... and when you're 8000km's away from home and family, friends are all important.

We kicked off the day at about 12 with the first round of vodka OJ's and a lot of confused looks and shrugging of shoulders with regards to roasting chicken. Yes, we know it was supposed to be turkey, we just wanted to be different. Anyways, our combined culinary shortcomings made glaringly obvious, we took the only path left... and so was born our Google Chicken. A raging success I might add, barring the rice, which was more pudding-like than fluffy. I asked someone at work why that was - apparently when you buy cheap 'n skanky rice you need to wash the starch off after cooking it. I'll remember that for next time then. Mince pies followed, complimented by vodka-whipped cream. Mmmmmmmm.

After Christmas dinner we headed down to my work where we were expecting to join a rocking little party there. That didn't really happen. Instead we got nasty glares and lots of cold shoulder. Not festive at all really. So we did the mature thing and tried to persuade my dumbass work colleague to bash down my bosses Jenga tower in mid-game. Hmmmm? We then tried to persuade him to either steal a bottle of Vodka for us, or pull his pants down and run around the table. He refused - obviously didn't want to 'belong' enough.

After about an hour, and more Lionel Richie than anyone should have to endure in a single sitting, we decided to head back home... with 6 bottles of wine. I think Madness said it best. We drank wine and orange concentrate (because the wine alone was nasty), laughed for ages, and danced on the table. The soundtack for the night was definitely Lemon Tree by Fools Garden... and Innocent by Our Lady Peace.

Sometime after midnight we started bailing, one by one, until it was just Tam and I left awake at 1am drinking the last of the wine. We tried to keep the vibe going by heading to the roof of our building, but the powers that be had locked the doors. And then we ran out of wine. And I guess that was that.

We're proud to present Cailey with the 'red-pepper' award for being the only person to chunk on the night. But she did go out in style, emptying Google chicken into her Santa hat whilst crouched over the toilet. You go grrrl! That's up there with G chundering down his sleeve in Buckley's, Cape Town. We still can't work out why she didn't use the bowl though?

I woke up at about 8am on Boxing Day still wearing a red Santa hat? No hangover though, which was rather good considering I had to be at work at 10.

I think I can honestly say that Christmas 2003 turned out to be, by far, the best Christmas ever. And that's no word of a lie. So just a big thanks to everyone who was there and who contributed to the day/night being such a success. And more happy happy Christmas wishes and thanks going out to everyone else out there who I'm lucky enough to call my friends... I know you would have been here with us if it weren't for that small 'different continents' factor.