Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year are coming at us like an out of control locomotive and I, for one, am wildly astonished. Where on earth did this year go?

It’s always at about this time of year that I swear up and down that I will do all my festive shopping early. However, I am still a tad traumatised from the time I actually managed this and bought my toddler niece an insane looking soft toy Giraffe with crazy-weird hair, sticky-outy bugged-out-eyes and disturbingly long legs, completely unaware of their family tradition of naming a toy after the person that gave it to them....*sigh*. No wonder the child is still afraid of me; to her I am the scary Love-Child of Macy Gray, Marty Feldman and a Tanzanian middle-distance runner.

This year, there are all sorts of fabulous plans afoot with my Lovelyfriend and her family for the exquisitely brief period of time between Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. I suggested we get together to discuss possibilities, but it all got a bit cloak and dagger...

To: Lovely Friend

From: Miranda

I don’t know if I can meet you behind the bookcases to discuss our en masse faux-family holiday as:

a) they are flush against the wall,

b) I haven’t had much experience with skulking

d) what happened to c)???

e) Aunty Em, Aunty Em, it’s a twister...

I was hoping someone in her family would be kind enough to buy me a Hugh Jackman costume/suit and helpfully wear it about the place while I was on holiday, so I could have something scrummy to look at while I gorge myself to death on Marzipan and other disgusting paraphernalia I wouldn’t touch at any other time of year.

Sadly, the only Hugh Jackman costume available is on eBay and comes from China, so it isn’t quite right. [Handy tip for Chinese tailors: One size NEVER fits all. In fact, I don’t think it fits ANYONE, unless you are 6 years old, four feet tall, but only three inches wide or have been kept in a box your whole life and only fed that soup that supposedly has negative calories].

So, my Hugh Jackman may actually end up looking like Alexander Downer unless I squint profoundly and list badly to the left. I guess I could just buy an Alexander Downer suit to simplify things but it would have to be covered in all sorts of other bits and pieces to make it more attractive. Including a ‘Hugh Jackman suit’.

See how the whole thing just gets ridiculously complicated ?

Added to the level of stress, co-ordination and expertise required to organise a holiday with loads of people I love have been the technical problems experienced by The King’s Tribune lately, which has had everyone in a tizz. Thanks to the interwebby goblins, things have not been working as they should and Lovelyfriend has had to keep whacking the website with a hammer and shouting at it, whilst trying not to pour more coffee into her laptop than is healthy for either one of them.

Given my startling level of technical expertise, I helpfully suggested that the Hamsters that run the wheels that turn the cranks that run the whole interwebby thing were probably down again. Too much traffic. Too small legs.

I recommended that the office upgrade to a Ferret-run system – much more get up and go and is less likely to get eaten by the Jack Russell-powered photocopier. Sadly, they didn’t heed my advice or pay my consultant’s fee, so I am going to have to find another way to pay for my Christmas shopping.

I am also beginning to think that we need some new IT staff, as Miss Jane sometimes falls over and throws coffee into her computers and poor Justin has intuitive software (no – not a euphemism) that helpfully allows him to show porn to his mother-in-law. For those of you who missed last month’s Tribune, I highly recommend you get online and read THAT story.

It all began with a singing competition at The King of Tonga in the style of Australian Idol. I was hoping for something highbrow and cut-throat, with strict rules and a requirement that all attendees adhere to a ‘correct pitch at all times’ rule. I soon realised that if my rules were implemented, no-one would meet the criteria, no-one would be served at the bar, they would make NO money, the bar would have to close down and all that King of Tonga fabulousness would have been brought undone by one of society’s most over-rated forms of self-expression (if you don’t count Yodelling and that weird painting where you get naked and roll all over a giant canvas with puddles of paint and call it ‘art’).

Speaking of weird competitions, I have thought for some time that we should re-invent that old show “It’s a Knockout” just in time for the end-of-year festivities. We could call it “It’s a Guilt-off”. Lots of people’s snarky, difficult relatives could be handed an ex-Marine or Navy Seal, professional mercenary, Green Beret, bounty hunter, etc, and see who could emotionally and psychologically break theirs down the fastest. Don’t pretend this doesn’t already happen in many houses over Hanukkah and Christmas; we could at least make a reality show out of it, enjoy the pain and suffering of others and call it entertainment.

Another competition we could get up and running could be to “Wit for Australia”. All the amusingly dry and caustic relatives you have could be set up against each other to find the most amusing and sarcastic. I think I could give it a red hot go but there are many others I know who could Wit for Gold. My money is on our beloved Editors to take out the “Couples Synchronised Witting”, completely decimating the field with little or no effort, from the comfort of their deckchairs.

Lastly, an excellent pastime this holidays would be for everyone to put their heads together and get their “New Inventors” on. There are many problems to be solved, such as the age-old problem of finding a suitably festive and traditional range of foods that makes one feel part of a genuine Yuletide celebration, without trapping the cook in a sauna-like kitchen for three days prior in 45 degree heat and baking them to death, or coughing up a couple of crabsticks and six kinds of salad, so you feel like a contestant on The Biggest Loser.

For example, we need fume-controlling underpants that have some sort of catalytic converter for the post-lunch stupor; undies that convert noxious fumes from the Turkey Surprise into sunshine and butterflies and pure/clean energy. If you could do that and harness the power, you could not only power a few robots to clean up the place while everyone has a nap, you might just be able to power a replica of yourself to send off to Aunty Edna’s so you don’t have to choke down any more Gefilte Fish or Dark Fruit Cake (interestingly, I accidentally typed Dark ‘Freud’ Cake... hmmm...scary... best not delve too deep into THAT one...).

So, I’ll get started on the designs for the convertible underpants and Freud cake if you’ll make yourself useful by hopping into the Hugh Jackman suit and limbering up for the “Wit Off”.

See you behind the second bookcase on the left in fifteen minutes.

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