Monday, December 22, 2008

All I Want for Christmas Is Food...

My favourite Christmas song in the whole wide world is Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You." I have been playing it every morning to get the office in the festive spirit. Not sure it is working, as I have already had complaints.
Ahh Christmas... Every year we say "I can't believe it is Christmas already" - well believe it.
But is it sad that the thing I am most looking forward to this Christmas is food? Honestly, I have now been dreaming about it for 2 days.

I remember one Christmas Eve my brother woke up and saw "Santa" visiting our place delivering our new bikes. I believed that story for years and years. That was the highlight of my childhood and the story that was told over and over again every year. Then something happened... I realised opening presents and taking about Santa were just time wasting tactics designed to distract your stomach from the wondrous, amazing taste sensation that was about to hit your lips.

I'm half Italian, half Greek and from my experience, a wog's worst nightmare is people being hungry. You've just eaten dinner but still "Are you hungry, want me to make you something else, come on I'll put on a sauce etc etc etc etc"
So needless to say, Christmas Day for my family revolves around eating. If we aren't eating, we are cooking, if we are not cooking we are talking about what we are going to eat. And I love it.

We often get too caught up in the commercialisation of Christmas, but for me sitting around with a plate full of food, a good glass of wine, family and friends - it just doesn't get better.

You know what is even better than Christmas food... knowing you will be eating leftovers for the next four days. Yessssssssssssssssssss

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Who needs friends when you have Facebook?

I'm having a Carrie Bradshaw, Sex in the City moment. Don't worry I'm not going to sit near my window with a cigarette and ask myself rhetorical questions, no my Sex in the City moment revolves around friends.

Facebook, facebook, facebook... or as I like to call it Stalkbook. Who doesn't enjoy a Stalkbook session of going through people's photos, reading their wall and checking status updates. It seems that people love to self promote, tell people what they are having for dinner, how drunk they were, how hungover they are etc etc etc etc.

I have over 300 "friends" on Stalkbook... but really how many are actually my friends. People I went to school with 15 years ago and random people who I met on Saturday night just don't cut it.
So now I have invested my time in what I like to the Sunday Night Eviction. Slowly and surely, one by one cutting "friends" off the list. Cause heaven forbid one of these friends find out they are no longer on my list.

It seems that privacy has flown out the window. And social conversation now involves words such as "tagging" and "OMG, profile pic!". When you meet people, its not "what's your number" anymore, more like - "Do you have Facebook?". It seems nobody actually likes to talk to anyone anymore. First it was the phone, then the fax, then slowly the mobile, text message, email and now social networking. Its like people are avoiding each other.

A few of my "real" friends are cutting Facebook out of their lives... how on earth will they know what's going on in the world????