As a person who isn’t much of a celebrater of things, it’s been an awfully long time between organising celebrations for me.   These days I am hopeless with remembering other peoples birthdays and have only recently gotten around to getting a birthday calendar organised for friends and family.    Whilst I heartily attend other peoples parties, I haven’t thrown myself one in MANY years, usually avoiding celebration on my birthday entirely.

Last time I threw myself a party it was a going away party for when I left England and returned to Australia.  The party itself was Awesome!  But I was highly biased.  It started off at a lovely little English pub, where I was plyed with drink after drink until I was drinking 4 parts bourbon and 1 part Coke out of a pint glass as people were either buying me a straight bourbon to add to my bourbon and Coke, or were buying me double bourbon and Cokes.  The party then moved to a little resturant that I had hired for the night exclusivly, allowing us to continue drinking as well as get a great feed, and also keep going until the wee hours of the morning.  I remember waking up the next day still drunk, still feeling great…  And then I got on a plane and left England.  The party was a raving success as all of the people from the job I had in Enland as well as friends I had met in the two years I was living there all turned up to help see that I had a good night.

I have never really been game to attempt to repeat such a great party, as I didn’t want the memory of that nigt to disapear into obscurity.  However since reconnecting with a few of the people from when I was in England I have wanted to live those fun times again.  So in late Feb or early March there may actually be something that is very rare happening…  I may actually throw a party.  Stay tuned.

It’s a weird world we live in…  full of weird traditions.  I remember Christmas differently as a kid than I do now and I’m not sure if this is because Christmas has changed for my family, or because I’m just seeing it from a different perspective.

As a child, I remember the putting up of the christmas tree really meant something.  The tree was a magical thing with decorations that would come out each year and be something to play with army men on or drive matchbox cars along it’s branches.  Each year I would be a little taller and able to play a little higher in the branches.  Each year there would be the old favourite decorations that I remembered from last year, and maybe a new one that I or my sisters had made at school.  We would wake up early on Christmas day, and excitedly await our parents waking up so that we could open our presents.   Some years we would have family drop in on us, other years we would go visiting other reletives or friends, dropping off presents, maybe getting some.  Admittedly when my folks split up, it was a boon for us kids, as we would then have 2 Christmases…  But I think thats when the whole degredation of Christmas started.  There were some great christmases, and some crappy ones in there.  I was introduced to the concept of gift value and slowly the mystique started wearing off.  The larger family started laying down gift giving rules so that they would feel better.  The Secret Santa concept was introduced to limit people to only buying a gift for one adult and funnelling their money into buying for the kids.  Personally I think all this does is teach the kids more that Christmas is all about getting presents.

Personally I’m a little over Christmas these days…  I’m over the commercialisation of it…  I’m over the keeping up with the Jones’ of it…  I’m over all of the stress and arguements it causes in families simply because of those previous two. Maybe I saw things differently as a kid, and missed the stress buildup in my parents?  Maybe it was there and Christmases haven’t changed all that much, it’s just my perspective that has changed…  I don’t really know.  This Christmas was nicer than most, as whilst there was the whole extended family thing with the stress and the Secret Santa thing, there was also a nice immediate family get together on Christmas Morning.  It was wonderful and it was almost what I remember about Christmas.

Christmas started off as I believe, a Pagan celebration of the middle of Winter, and the coming of spring.  A celebration of a new year and a new chance to make life better.  The gift giving should be small and purely a token of love and friendship, the feasting should be provided by all as a community/family effort rather than provided by a small few.  Organise everyone prior to the event rather than just have a couple of people preparing a feast on the day.  Bring back the fun of Christmas I say, instead of the stressful controlled and planned Christmas’ that I’m seeing and not really enjoying over the last few years.  Bring back the small immediate family get together on Christmas morning.

Maybe I will start enjoying Christmases again.

• is tinkering with the idea of selling his pewter work on Etsy -> http://syridian.etsy.com #

I have just posted an article about creating a pewter drinking vessel to the Casting forum of the Lochac Network.  For those of you who follow my Pewter casting, you can check it out by click on the picture.

Direct link to Lochac.net

It worked out great, and I look forward to making more.

• http://bit.ly/4F6Rwq #
• is mumbling over multiple multi-media micro-blogs. #