CHRISTMAS HAPPENS IN...13 DAYS!

Days to christmas: 13

Behind Bens advent calendar door today: A sack with presents

Guess at what will be behind tomorrows: A cracker?

Thats right folks! 13 days! That's less 2 weeks. In fact that's 8 more working days for me. One more day at university. One more lecture and one more seminar. Wow! The numbers are getting smaller.

My christmas plans are well and truly finalized now. I'm taking my girlfriend to see Eastenders' Steve McFadden in Peter Pan at the Palace Theatre this weekend and I've booked us a room at the Palace Hotel afterwards which should be nice.

We're using next weekend as our unofficial christmas day really because due to distance, families and other commitments we won't be seeing eachother on christmas day itself :( (a nice big aw from everyone please!) which means I'm having to cart presents down to the hotel early in the afternoon before she arrives (not that they're that huge, in case you're reading :P) I'm really looking forward to it actually. Apart from the obvious I really like the Palace Hotel and it's been years since I've seen a traditional panto. I'm planning to spend some time next week in front of my bathroom mirror shouting 'It's behind you!' just to get into practise before we go. I swear the tickets arrived last week but my mum (who has moved them) swears she hasn't seen them (even though she has moved them) and insists that they are somewhere in my bedroom (despite the fact that she has moved them). Grrrrrr!

Other than that the house is looking nicely 'christmassed' now with the trees, wreaths and wot-nots hanging about. My nan has finally bought some new christmas lights and decided to go all minimalist with them by plugging in the whole set and just throwing them in a heap on top of her record player. And my dad has decked out his apartment in Reading with a menagerie of fiber optic foliage which I'm sure would give any onlooker a tension headache within minutes. The fun!

And thats about it for now, but until my next post consider this:

Every year, when taking chocolates from advent calendars, thousands of people have the 'good idea' of using the left over tray to make festively shaped ice cubes. Why is this a paradox?