Festive cheer and wrapping paper

 Absolutely knackering, excellent day today. This morning, after a brief stint as chief pannettone-toaster, I caught a lift into Woking and did a quick stocking-filler shop with my mother, mostly featuring a trip to the conveniently located South African food shop (for those who don't know, my parents are bona fide South Africans (and thus technically Dirty Immigrants), and I come from a background of boerewors, braais, koeksisters and biltong) near the station. Then it was onto a train to Waterloo to meet Whizzkid and Percy (another university friend (this nickname is long-standing, I'm sure you can work out why) who is similarly awesome) for lunch.

We ate at Maxwell's in Covent Garden. The food was OK, but not really up to the prices (although I had my first milkshake in months, so I wasn't complaining) and we were probably the worst behaved people in a restaurant full of children.

Despite Percy's apprehensive expression, he's actually the one taking the picture

Having demolished lunch at superhuman speed, we embarked upon some pretty efficient Christmas shopping before I had to catch my train.

Whizzkid was trying to find something for each of his parents, and having absolutely slated my first idea (so angrily that I won't even repeat it here), he decided my somewhat snarky suggestion of 'a tie or something' was exactly right. A quick search on his Gadget revealed that the only tie shops in London that aren't bondage-related are Tie Rack, so that is where we went.

Searching for a tie that fit Whizzkid's rather exacting standards got boring quite fast, so we became the worst behaved people in Tie Rack, too.

What can I say? Hats are exciting:

This should be a movie poster

On the hunt for maternally-appropriate presents, we of course headed straight to Muji, where I discovered I would quite like a cape. Percy was rather taken with the 19th-century-ness of the one I tried on (sadly no picture, maybe next time I stop by) and it was surprisingly snug, but sadly cost much more than the Uniqlo coat I've had my eye on, so I don't think this will be my alternative. 

After a few smart buys, we left and I had to rush off back to Woking to meet my imminently-arriving father and brother. 

It has been excellent to see them again, but as they brought all the presents with them, this evening has been hard graft. So much wrapping!

My mother and I breezed through the actual Christmas presents, and then started on the mountain of stocking fillers. My back hurts.

Hours of wrapping, soon to be minutes of shredding

Each of those bags is for a different person. It took a while.

Stockings are a Christmas tradition that I'm glad we've kept despite growing up. The unwrapping is half the fun! It follows, therefore, that in a balanced universe, the wrapping should be some sort of negative fun... 

The stockings this year are very cute, though:

It seems a shame to hideously distend them with gifts...

Now I really must go to bed, as there are probably all sorts of things to do tomorrow. 

I may be setting off into an internetless void tomorrow, so if I am, have a great Christmas and remember not to take anything too seriously!