24th December, 1999

Christmas Eve... when the streets become overcrowded with noisy, overexcited kids... when your bank balance is lower than the neckline of Jennifer Lopez' dress... when everybody seems to go a bit nutso in anticipation of the wonderful gifts and experiences of the day to come... This last Xmas Eve was no different. Too bad I had to work that day..

(click the thumbnails for a larger shot and a caption)

	As with last year, we did the Kris Kringle (Secret Santa) thing, and the presents were handed out today. I tried to get pictures of everyone with their presents, but unfortunately I couldn't get everyone. Here's zen with a lovely tin of caramels of some sort.
	Here's Dreddy. He received a CD wallet. If you look closely you can see he's already trying it out. Hmmm....
	This strange specimen happens to be one of our Company Directors, Jaryd. I was his Secret Santa, and my gift to him was somewhat of a retaliation from what he gave me for my 21st. He gave me a box full of miscellaneous cool stuff like a bag of marbles, glow-in-the-dark plastic stars, a pack of cards, and other oddities too numerous to mention. So for Christmas I gave Jaryd a bag containing (among other weird stuff) a feather duster, an egg whisk, a weird head band thing with spinny wobbly things on it, and one of those weird squidgy tube things that fall out of your hands... hmmm...
	Here's Justin. Justin received one of the same weird squidgy tubes that I had given to Jaryd, and also a packet of "Fresh as a daisy - 10 Disposable Toilet Seat Protectors".
	Strych got one of those weasel-that-plays-with-the-ball things, and a shotglass with some strange plant on it... hmmm once more...
	Scott got a Nestle Time Capsule full of choccies and a bizzare cool looking little beany critter.
	Here's Glenn with the huge box of Roses chocolates that he got from his Secret Santa.
	And Silvia got a box of Ferraro Rocheres... Yuuummmm...
	Hatch got a stubbie holder that says "Piss on or piss off!" which came in handy for later on in the day when we actually did "piss on".
	Here's what I got Braden for Christmas. A radio controlled car! It wasn't really anything special, but I remembered how much fun I used to have with my RC car as a kid, and judging by Braden's reaction when he uwrapped the gift, he felt the same way. Braden's gift to me was a Ralph T-Shirt, from Ralph, the magazine. It has a small 'RALPH" on the front, and on the back it has the number 69 written in HUGE sports-style lettering across the back. I didn't get a picture of it unfortunately, but I wear it quite a bit, so you may see the odd pic of the shirt on this site.
	We had a BBQ lunch. This is Jaryd's arm, making sure the rissoles don't get too crispy.
	Always on the job, here's Claudio, donning an apron to cook us up a culinary feast of... umm... sausages and rissoles.
	As the day rolled on, the tomfoolery levels rose. Here's me doing some bizzare Post-It-Note-Blair-Witch ritual.
	Here's Jaryd losing very badly at an afternoon Unreal Tournament bout.
	Here's Dreddy kicking Jaryd's ass.

Okay... so not a lot of work got done in the office that day, but I really don't think that Claude was expecting much from us. That night we went to my brother, Jamie's place for Xmas Eve festivities..

	This is my Mum and Dad a few chardonnays into the night.
	There was this ultra-cool spider's web out the back of Jamie's place suspended with an even cooler spider in the middle of it.
	I should become a nature photographer.
	We decided to go for a bit of a walk up the street a little later on in the night to see the different Christmas lights. We ran into Santa, and he gave us some dodgy Christmas lollies.
	Here's probably the best set of lights we came across. Unfortunately the flash on my camera wasn't really strong enough to capture the scene very well, but you should get some sort of idea of how it looked.
	This isn't my Dad... honest... It's a madman that we found in the park. But it's not my Dad.

So that was Xmas Eve... Click here to check out what happened the next day.

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