Holiday rituals

While I am largely preoccupied with the prospect of a legitimate white Christmas this year (so excited), it's been so fun doing all my holiday rituals here in Sydney before I go.

Mini Christmas ham with my family at our 'early Christmas' dinner.

Baked gifts wrapped and ready to go.

Christmas cards signed, sealed and delivered.

And in true ritual style I'm already eating the leftover early-Christmas-ham in various forms.

Almost done

As the sun begins to set and I'm still at work, I decided to update my speech bubble (last seen here) with something I saw on a poster last week.

One more day and I'm lea-ving on a jet plane!

Career anxiety

Even Asian snacks are pushing you harder.

A friend pointed me to this HBR blog post on career anxiety recently, it's a good read if you're reflecting on your achievements from the year and don't feel like you've done 'enough' (don't we all feel this way sometimes?).  While I love my job, I definitely have my days when I wonder if I've made the right choices, and as they point out the proliferation of social networks isn't helping either.  Their three ways to overcome this anxiety is nothing new, but like so many pieces of wisdom they are a challenge to practice:

1. De-emphasise prestige and compensation.

2. Start experimenting.

3. Spend time defining your passions.

These work in any order.

Paris according to the internet

From our last French dining experience at Claude's

Between Christmas and New Years in the UK with C's family, we're treating ourselves to four days in Paris - ooh la la! It'll be my second time to the famous city and while I still intend to visit all the icons all over again, planning it this time around is markedly different than the first.  Backpacker vs working-person's budget aside, I'm building my itinerary around the various blogs I've stumbled upon instead of consulting the 'Europe on a shoestring' Lonely Planet book we backpackers shared between us, or poorly designed tourism sites on the city.  It makes me feel like I'm really getting an insiders look or going off the recommendation of a loose friend, and it's just another reason why I love the internet so.

For those who are interested, this is what I have so far:

Majority of food decisions will be driven by David Lebovitz's recommendations - an American pastry chef who came to Paris.

Dying to stay at Hotel la Maison on a friend's recommendation, and more excitingly as it was just recently redesigned by Margiela.

While I don't always agree with her oversized-sweater-no-pants look, I can never go past visual inspiration from Rumi's scrolling photo diaries from her travels.

And of course, secretly hoping that I will run into Isabel and Jerome and that they will invite us both back to their shack for cheese and wine over DIY campfire.

That ravioli

A quick post - Christmas parties and hobbling in glitter heels aside, these are some of the less outrageous but no less delightful moments from the week past.

Made a return visit to Jamie's and finally got to try the baked mushrooms and that ravioli

The clouds parted and the rain kindly disappeared for the night of our Christmas party.

Postponed a girls' pub crawl for equally an equally fun night in with rose, dumplings and gelato.