admin's blog

My favourite Christmas present this year was from my youngest son.

He likes to make things for us, and also likes to leave it to the last minute.

So on Christmas Eve afternoon he was running around, asking if I had a blank audio CD anywhere. I only had DVDs - I mean we all just email stuff these days, or use a USB key to transfer stuff. He wouldn't tell me what he wanted it for - there was no mention of presents.

The next morning when he finally woke up (imagine sleeping in until 10am on Christmas Day! - even a thirteen year old boy (who was born a teenager)), he showed me what he had made.

A powerpoint presentation, set to music by Coldplay, of various images he had downloaded. Obviously he sees me as  a kissing kind of mum - every single image was a couple kissing - whether it was Mr and Mrs Santa, Minnie and Mickey Mouse, puppies, kittens, and everything else cute. Ending with a stylised Merry Christmas greeting.

The funniest thing to me was that he had done for free what I had been doing most of the last week at work - synchronising music, slides, and animations to music and voiceovers, in powerpoint.

He has a good future ahead, that one.

http://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com/CPI/index.html  has its annual costing of the items sung about in the Twelve Days of Christmas carol.

This year its an extremely (and possibly over-) cutesy video of young kids acting out the various characters - i liked the lords a leaping. I was tempted to give up, it was so sweet, but it only takes a minute.

This year the total was $21,465, up from last years $21,080.

I found the best part was the " Meet the gifts"  section, where you could click on each gift, and see a drop-down of the actual cost and percentage change, plus an explanation of each gift. Lots of good information there, and you can read as fast as you like.

It definitely reflects the trend in putting everything to video this year.

Merry Christmas, anyway.

Ryan's Christmas Lights were turned on at the beginning of December as planned.

Ryan's Christmas Lights are regularly voted the best Christmas Lights in Adelaide, (if not South Australia), and are well worth checking out. It's a serious business - this year there are 26,000 lights, computer-controlled, and synched to music.

There's a video of the opening night at http://ryanschristmaslights.com/videos.php?id=DUhgNSEFl14 - make sure you watch the full 2 minute video to get the full display. The timed ground display is pretty cool.

The home page is at ryanschristmaslights.com - take some time wandering around the site, to see photos of previous years, details on the computer setup, a history of the number of lights used over the years, and much more.

A Christmas Star.

Last Thursday I was in town for a dance lesson, and cut through Martin Place.

The giant Christmas Tree was being hoisted and decorated by crane, in preparation for the Christmas Tree Lighting on Nov 26.

Here's a picture of the mostly naked tree:

I probably won't be in town until next week, when it will be all decorated. I'll take a picture then, at night, to see how good it looks.

Warringah Mall has its Christmas decorations up.

Sometimes it seems that all the shopping malls around Sydney have the same Christmas tree designers - the ones in Myer and Picadilly Arcade in Sydney, and the Warringah mall one, all look the same.

Moderate sized green tree, with big shiny balls spiralling around the tree. The only difference being the colour theme - sometimes it's red, sometimes it's gold, sometimes it's silver.

But the best bit of living near the northern beaches, is the beach treatment of Santa Claus.

This fellow is at the front of MallMusic - a fantastic music shop at Warringah mall that has pianos, sheet music, music courses, CDs, DVDs and more.

Yes, the David Jones Christmas Window display for 2009 has been up for a week, and it's as beautiful and impressive as ever.

This year it's featuring some of the most popular Christmas Carols - Joy to the World,  Good King Wenceslas, Little Drummer Boy, Ivy and the Holly.

I can't decide which one I like best:  Joy to the World is beautiful, but Good King Wenceslas is just plain fun.

Here is one photo - the others will be in the Christmas Windows gallery:

And it's the battle of the Christmas Tree Lighting ceremonies, with two spectacular concerts in different parts of Sydney, at the end of November.

The City of Sydney comes out first, on Thu 26 November, trumpeting the city's largest Christmas Tree (an impressive 21 metre tall tree in Martin Place).  Performers include Monica Trapaga.

Details at http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/WhatsOn/html/custom/2234-event-detail...

Close on it's heels is the Darling Harbour Christmas Tree Concert. According to this site, its also the tallest Christmas tree in Sydney at 21 metres.  And also has Monica Trapaga.

It does sound tempting though - the grand finale is the arrival of Santa, lighting of the Christmas tree by a child from the Starlight Children's Foundation, and a stunning fireworks display over Cockle Bay.

And Sydney's finest a cappella groups will perform traditional carols by the tree from 7pm - 9pm throughout December (Thurs to Sun).

Details at http://www.darlingharbour.com/index.cfm?menu_id=0&content_id=1756

The site has been a little up and down in the last week, as I applied a major update (it runs on Drupal, if you're interested - just like the White House),  and added a few more functions.

Although everything worked perfectly on my copy of the site on my laptop, when I copied it back to the internet, it kept running out of memory in a big way.

So I had to pull out the Google mapping feature, advanced popup dates, and selecting events by year.

It should now be nice and slim, and ready for details of any Christmas events, Christmas streets with decorations, timings for Church services, restaurants open on Christmas day, and heaps more.

Some of the new features include personal gift wishlists, polls and personal blogs.

If I have time in the next few weeks, I'll add some music for popular carols (but only if you click on it), and videos on how to embed Google maps into any post.

Merry Christmas

Wow. I've already started getting queries from people reading the site, planning for Chrismas, asking what time the childrens Christmas carols start.

Not many  places have published their Christmas plans yet, so I've deleted Christmas Events from 2008 to avoid confusion.

Even my local Church hasn't published its schedule for the big carols at the beach. Although the council has....

I'll be contacting major event managers to see when they will be publishing their timetables, and add them as soon as possible.

cheers

The online directory for Christmas in July accommodation and restaurants is now available.

You can become a free member of Christmas in Australia, and add details  of your hotel or restaurant.

The directory allows you to search by state, suburb, and hotel or restaurant.

Be prepared and book early.

Enjoy