ChrissieWe went to Wayne's Tree World yesterday arvo and bought our tree.I tried to find a fraser fir, as was recommended by Jen, but settled in the end for a gorgeous noble fir that is just short of 2.5 metres (eight feet) and just the most perfect shape.
Then I spent the rest of the day trimming it, with help from David to put on the lights.
I love Christmas — as I blogged about last year.
Every year I try to find a little new something for the tree. This year it's a couple of dozen Polish crystal glass raindrops ...... I love them so much I'm tempted to go and buy a whole heap more.
It's chilly today and we're going to light the fire! Yay!
:: A friend of mine mentioned choral music yesterday — on facebook — and I've been listening to a Haydn mass non-stop ever since. Perfect for this time of the year.
I also love Sufjan Stevens' huge album, Songs for Christmas. It's just so beautiful, and he gets such a distinctive sound with all the old familiars. Do you have any Chrissie music you love?
:: We're having a day in LA tomorrow. Will's passport expires in January, so we're off to the Australian Consulate in Century City to get him a new one. Hoping to get in a couple of hours at the LA Museum of Contemporary Art as well.
I shall so miss LA when we're back in Australia!
On Friday we'll be back there again, as guests of the organisation, Australians in Film, to see a special preview screening of the new Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's at the Warner Bros studios in Hollywood, so I'm excited!

Turkey!
It's Thanksgiving today — so happy turkey day to my American friends!
:: It's been a week since my last post ...... and I've been productive. I've got Christmas well under control, with parcels ready to go, and Christmas cards all written and ready to post.
Lily was home for a few days, and we had family dinners at the Bondi on two nights. I'm happy to report it was jumping both times, and the new winter menu is just sensational. If I do say so myself!
At home, David got cooking and I got baking, and Lily and I got stuck into her quilt and have finished piecing the top. Yay! So now I can relax and get it layered and quilted.Lily has planned a post-Christmas road-trip with friends of hers from Perth, tying in with our visit from Dace, Max and Halina. She still has the cast on her leg, and we're all hoping she'll be in good shape for her trip, which takes in the Grand Canyon and Oklahoma City for the Flaming Lips' New Year's Eve concert.
I was devastated when she flew off back up north: I'll see her just a couple more times over Christmas and the New Year and then David, Will and I will be off home to Perth.
It's been raining — oh the very sound of it dripping on the big leaves outside our bedroom window at night ... soooooothing!
We've been to the movies — last week we saw the wonderful and widely acclaimed British film, Happy Go Lucky, which I heartily recommend. Last night, we saw Australia, which was a truly entertaining three hours if a little dodgy on dialogue and music. And with a week and a good pair of scissors, I'd be more than capable of cutting a good twenty minutes out of it. But definitely worth seeing. The first Baz movie I've liked. But why the grandiose, all-encompassing title? A great film to see at an early session so you've time for lots of talk about it afterwards.
I've been sorting out my 10,000 photos stored in iPhoto, and updating my visual diary, which is definitely one of those jobs best done when there's no rush ...
... and I've been making a few bits and bobs out of papier mache for Christmas. These have turned out strange. I have doubts. They are weird and very spooky, and eventually they will get wings and then be weird and very spooky angels. The jury is out until then!
There are a few less subversive-looking birds made with the same technique, but I neglected to photograph them. Next time.
:: Horrible, horrible reports from Mumbai. And an Air New Zealand training plane down in the Mediterranean. And an Australian killed in Afghanistan. Grim times.

SundayImagine my poor dogs flying home to Australia in these little boxes, and then, when the nightmare journey does end, having to spend weeks in quarantine.
I worry particularly about Nipper, who is very much My Dog. He sits as near to me as possible wherever I am, usually touching my feet, or leaning up against my legs. Follows me up and down stairs. Waits outside the loo for me. Sleeps at the foot of my bed. He will pine in quarantine, so I hope he at least gets to bunk up with Yoshi.
I've been put in touch with a guy in LA who will help organise their trip home. The quarantine regulations are very complicated, so I feel better to have someone who knows the ropes helping me get them home.
:: Just got back from a wonderful chatty Sunday session-style arvo at the Bondi. There were quite a few of us — the drinks and nibbles were our prize for being the top table at last year's season of quiz nights. Sounds a bit weird, I know, to have won the series when we own the place, but I assure you it was all above board!
There was lots of talk about the new Baz whatsisname movie, Australia, which opens here the night before Thanksgiving. A few weeks ago, David and I saw a short trailer for the movie and were a bit worried about it. But on Friday night, we went to see Happy Go Lucky (really really wonderful English film) at the local cinema and there was a longer trailer for Australia, and I must say it looked a lot better. So we'll see.
:: How's your Christmas shopping? These are pics of FAO Schwarz, the fabulous, enormous, magical toyshop in New York on Fifth Avenue, right next door to the big glass-cube Apple store.There are whole wings dedicated to animals, books, Lego, and Playmobil and Barbie. Then there's a huge Harry Potter section — including these 'life-size' (or what you imagine life size to be) dragons.The one in the window was half -price — a snip at $2300. The unicorn, which was, frankly, a little grubby about the hoof, was a mere $800.
:: It's been hot and sunny ever since we got back from New York. There have been terrible fires in Los Angeles, with flames whipped up by fierce 96 mph Santa Ana winds — about 800 homes lost. Ghastly.
:: We bought tickets home to Perth this morning. So I feel I have a date to work to, and can now structure the time I have left and organise the things I have to do to get home. Also, this weekend, we booked a return trip to Santa Fe for when Dace is with us — fantastic! We'll be in Santa Fe for New Year's, which is bound to be spectacular.
:: Lily has had a second opinion on her foot, and will now not need surgery — thank heavens. She has a better cast, which has already made a difference to how she gets about, and has been told that the reason her ankles give out on her so frequently is that she has short, tight hamstrings and calf muscles, which she needs to stretch, strengthen and lengthen by exercise. Then she'll stop stressing her ankles by no longer walking on the sides of her feet.

Looking good

The Golden Compass has started here, and will follow in Australia very soon. Click here for the NY Times' review. The link will take you to a NY Times page with the review from where you can also look at trailers and other info.
It's reassuring to note that this is just the first of three movies to be made of the Philip Pullman trilogy, His Dark Materials. I was wondering what the filmmakers had done to the story of Lyra and Will's relationship, as there seems little of it in the trailers. For me, it was one of the most poignant elements of the books, especially at the end, which I won't talk about in the hope that if you haven't read them, you may do so.

:: The NYT page will also connect you to other reviews, and it's sad to see Atonement not scoring very highly. But then again, Keira Knightley's in it, and I don't find her particulalry impressive.

:: Chapter III's having a change of colours ... I spoke to my parents in Australia last night and they told me that they were having to buy lots of colour cartridges for their printer because they print all my posts out, and all the blue type, plus the pics, meant a big drain on printing resources. So plain black from now on!

Shoes for Elle
I'm off to meet baby Elle for the first time this afternoon, so I've made her a tiny pair of felt slippers that will probably fit her for a day and a half!
They were great fun to make, and the pattern and very simple instructions (not much more than 'sew the bits together and decorate') can be found right here.
I started sewing on the machine, but the pieces were so tiny I ended up sewing by hand, which I always enjoy.
While I was finishing off this morning, I listened to a wonderful conversation with Barbara Kingsolver on BBC Radio 4, in which she talked all about The Poisonwood Bible, one of my all-time most admired books.

:: David and I went to the movies last night, and can thoroughly recommend Dan in Real Life, starring Steve Carell, who plays the Ricky Gervais character in the excellent American version of The Office. It's an entirely enjoyable romantic comedy, and one you could take your kids or your mother-in-law to see.
Most of the action takes place in a rambling, shambling wooden house right on the beach in Rhode Island - it looks gorgeous. We'll have to go east and see this part of the country. Afterwards, Dave remarked on how fantastic it would be to see rain like we'd seen in the film — a real drenching!

The Golden Compass

Oh, I just can't wait to see this movie, which opens on December 5 - brought to you by the same crowd who did The Lord of the Rings.
The trailer for The Golden Compass looks wonderful. Check it out ...

Bodice ripper
From the trailer, I thought The Golden Age, the new movie about Elizabeth I, starring Cate Blanchett, was bound for glory.
But I've read two reviews today - slate.com and the NY Times - that, while not exactly damning it with faint praise, do tend towards the scathing.
'Textile porn' was how slate.com's reviewer rather clumsily labelled it, an obvious acknowledgement of the movie's lavish cozzies.
Both reviews, however, were full of admiration for our Cate's performance, thank the stars.
Here's a well-turned quote from the NY Times piece:

'The blurring of fact and fancy is, of course, routine with this kind of opulent big-screen production, in which the finer points of history largely take a back seat to personal melodrama and lavish details of production design and costumes. In this regard "The Golden Age" may set a standard for such an adulterated form: it’s reductive, distorted and deliriously far-fetched, but the gowns are fabulous, the wigs are a sight and Clive Owen makes a dandy Errol Flynn, even if he’s really meant to be Walter Raleigh, the queen’s favorite smoldering slab of man meat.'

If you want to read more, click here.