"I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes..."

Christmas!!!!

"I don't want a lot for Christmas... There is just one thing I need... I don't care about the presents, underneath the Christmas treeeeee..." 

Er, actually I do. What's Christmas sans gifts? And frankly there isn't just one thing I need. There's two. I want a GHD. And a gold bracelet. Is that too much to ask?!?!?!?!?! Because I've been asking for the same two things since 2006 yet my desperate pleas have remained unnoticed. Or rather, just ignored. Ok given they don't come cheap but the amount of clothing I have been given since 2006 could probably buy me (a very crusty, very small, 19th-hand) private jet. So a GHD and a gold bracelet are certainly doable.

(Oh, and yes, I did watch Love Actually on the weekend.) 

I can really feel it! I can really feel Christmas! Not so much as I do in London (especially since the Santa I grew up with is British, not Afrikaans, and he eats cookies, not biltong), but I really feel it in the streets, in the shopping centre, on the radio... Mumsy and I have already planned the date and time of our traditional mince pie-making session once I'm back in Joburg, and Step Daddy and I are already fighting over who's going to make the Brandy Butter this year; and there's already a family debate over who's coming to Carols by Candelight and which church service we're going to attend on Christmas morning. Christmas is the best and biggest day of the year in my family. And right up until Christmas Eve we are frantically running around like elves on E to ensure everything is story-book perfect. Which it always is. Bar the lack of snow in SA and the fact that we can't put a wreath on the front door without it being stolen. 

Was contemplating changing my ringtone to 'Rocking around the Christmas Tree', but decided it's about a month too early. And that I wouldn't mind still having friends by New Year's Eve or I'll be celebrating solo.

  

To keep in the spirit of things, Vivi&Lola and I are going to a 'Festive Cooking' course on Wednesday at the SA Chef's Academy!! Am so bloody ecstatic I asked Mum to send down my Christmas Tree earrings and Santa hat but realised it's perhaps a little too over-enthusiastic since the course will probaly primarily consist of a bunch of newlyweds, gay couples and the odd geriatric who really want to learn. We're just there to get pissed and be merry. Am ready to whip up a gourmet Festive Feast while slogging back free Christmas wines and whistling 'Frosty the Snowman'.

It is my birthday first. Maybe I should be focusing a little more on those celebrations!

Decided on weekend to finally clear up erupting skin mass breakout once and for all, so took out a loan and booked a Dermalogica facial – so pricey I was half expecting to be carried to the room on a red cushion and placed in a rose-petal bath while topless bronzed men worked on my face simultaneously performing hand and foot massages and feeding me Champagne through a 19-carot gold straw. This was not so... Five minutes in and my overly sensitive skin (raw from excessive use of prescription zit-eradicating gels) felt like it was had been scraped off by sandpaper then plunged into a pool of citric acid. I lay squealing in pain while flustered facialist tried desperately to clean off whatever she had put on. Everything hurt. Eventually she gave up and I emerged from said treatment room resembling a burn victim – swollen, red, blotchy and puffy, too sore to even smile. My tears stung. Everything stung. And I spent the day lying on a couch behind closed doors spraying my face with a 'soothing spray' at regular intervals, sipping bubbly through a straw. So much for that idea... 

Have finally accepted Dermo's request to put me on antibiotics. Maybe I'll go back to school for a few weeks too. At least I'll fit in.