... the goose is getting fat, etc. and so forth.

Finally everything seems to be falling properly into place for Christmas - there's a nip in the air and it no longer seems strange to be singing things like 'In the bleak mid-winter' cos it's 35 degrees outside. HURRAH!

We started our Christmas shopping proper last night - bought a tree and some wrapping paper and little angels playing instruments (not in a tacky "rockin' santa" kind of way though, I hasten to assure you) and a small starter-assortment of pressies for people who are mostly far away. Have to finish those off this weekend because the postal deadline for Australia is 9 December - don't think I'll ever have been done with the pressies so early!

We've already received an exciting assortment of parcels from the colonies which we'll be arranging under our new tree this weekend

And of course - the very best part of Christmas - the carols have come out. I have two new CDs here which I obtained with a copy of Classic FM magazine (which really is the Women's Weekly of classical music, but much fun) - one of 'Christmas classics' which is very enjoyable - Christmas concertos, bits of choral works and so on; the other is carols and which I broached for the first time today. Some very nice bits and pieces on there, but the Oxford Cantata have got "Gaudete" all wrong - obviously nobody has ever told them that this particular piece MUST be sung in a broad Australian accent: "GOW-DAY-TAY". It's not right sung all posh and Latin :-\ but heigh ho. I'm sure I'll live. And I'm sure there'll be plenty of other carols and other Christmassy works to make up for deficiencies in Gaudete - Emma Kirkby singing the Messiah, for example...

# posted by minim @ 11:09 AM