The gerbils were all in London for Christmas 2012 so we decided to have an orphans' christmas at Vartry, Victor and Damon's pleasure palace. We were all whipping ourselves into an excited frenzy in the weeks leading up to Christmas - the menus changed constantly as everyone kept getting new ideas of what they wanted to pig out on.
The plan was to get to Vartry early on Christmas Eve, e.g. 11 am, and then we could all go food shopping as everything shuts down on Christmas Day. Well, plans are made to be broken... JB texted me to say we need to show the world one last time just how awesome our Santacon outfits were so we made plans to go check out Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park (a Christmas market) in our costumes - me as the Christmas Candy Cane and him as a Santa Claus. We didn't rock up until after 2 pm so needless to say I didn't make it to Vartry by 11 am. It turned out that Victor was working anyway so the 11 am timeline didn't matter. So JB and I hung out, ate some carny food and then went to meet his doppelganger, Doug, for a drink (or three). I made the mistake of fessing up to our antics when Victor texted to check where we were at 5 pm. Woopsie he was NOT happy. So I left JB to it with Doug and legged it to go get my groceries before racing off to Vartry.
JB rocked up at about 8 pm.... he had to check in with his ball and chain first, obviously. Hi Ines!
Victor had
Real Christmas tree that Kasia (other flatmate) got from her work.... those blue presents underneath the tree were her gifts to us! She was spending Christmas elsewhere. We thought they were fake decoration presents. Duh!
Obviously I had to wear my Christmas jumper....
Dinner for Christmas Eve was Damon's responsibility - lamb shanks.
Spuds.....
No gerbil gathering is complete without expressions of a forbidden love between JB and Victor...
Awkward moment...............
Christmas morning was upon us and I woke up and started making breakfast which I drew the short straw for. JB read online about reindeer pancakes so we had to have them, he declared. So I made pancakes, cooked some bacon and fried a few eggs. Easy peasy.
Stack of pancakes... pancakes cooked with butter looks prettier than pancakes cooked with no butter I've realised.
Bacoooooon....
Bacon = Good. Bacon + Golden Syrup = Amaaaayzing.
No meal is complete without a posed I'm-about-to-eat-my-meal photo by Victor.
Damon was still waking up....
JB got his Rudolph pancakes so he was happy. We needed cherry tomatoes for the eyes but didn't have any so he had to improvise.
After breakfast, it was present time!!!!! We were doing Secret Santa but since there were only 4 of us, odds were that we would figure out who got whom what pretty quickly.
JB, the rebel, got Victor an extra present because 'he had to'.
He got them both face masks of Robbie and Gary from Take That.... JB is Gary and Victor is Robbie. Don't ask.
JB was up first for his present ....
He got some Kiwiana items..... someone who loves him and shall remain nameless, went over the 5 pound limit. Tsk tsk tsk. I'm looking at you, Victor.
First thing in the morning so I had no makeup on... I got a Stabby Joe doll from Damon. We saw it in one of the Christmas market stalls in Belgium and the sneaky gerbil casually asked me which one was my favourite. Well-played. How cute is my owl pajamas. Thank you, Primark.
He got a Facebook mug from JB.... ah Facebook. Like!
Victor about to read the card I wrote him.... apparently I forgot and signed it with my name instead of Santa. Duh!
Gary and Stabby Joe S-I-T-T-I-N-G in a tree..................
Christmas afternoon saw us cracking open the two bottles of mulled wine I bought. So yum! I should have bought more. We also played some stupid True or False game and Victor was the big winner. Who knew that rhino's horn is made of hair? Bleuh.
Arvo snack was Victor's domain (except I think I took over and toasted the bagels... ahem...) and we had smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. Ha, take that, Brick Lane!
Ta-da.... ignore the burnt bits.
After that, the lovebirds had to subject us to their favourite Robbie and Gary song - Shame. Yes, shame on you two.
Dinner was cooked by JB. It was Christmas afterall so we had turkey burgers....
After that, we watched a whole bunch of movies... That was my first Christmas in London. It was excellent, surrounded by my gerbilly family. It will probably be the last one though as everyone (allegedly) is moving to Melbourne. So the next gerbil Christmas may be happening in Melbourne 201X.
