Merry X-Mas -- Wordless Wednesdays

X-MAS Tree at a mall

Kuku on the Roundabout

Merry X-mas

From today, I will post a snap of the decorations till Wednesday. It shall be my tribute to the concept of Wordless Wednesdays -- of course it is not a single day but 3 days of no words - only pics - to show you my x-mas decorations. I like the idea already. No more writing, talking, or thinking out loud.

Of course, I can write today. This is the snap taken on the 25th - of the crib. The Arien is quite creative. This time, I helped a bit. Usually, he gets so hyper that I keep away but this time we both were involved in the creation of the crib.

The Arien had this amazing design and by the time we finished with it - he felt our crib did not match up to his expectations.

According to me -- It was made by him with a lil help from me and so it was ob. great :D But, naturally, I would say that :D

This is a close-up shot of the crib - You can see baby Jesus and the focus was perfect for the snap. Of course, some of the others snaps were not so easy or blur-free.

Merry Christmas to you all :D

Merry Christmas to you all -- Happy Holidays!

The first bit of decoration that was completed on the night of the 23rd while we were giggling and shushing each other outside our door in the common hallway. It was also the first time we were hanging up the decoration on the door especially because the Arien is paranoid 'bout the door. He is so sure someone will walk away with our decorations.

We usually only put up the Merry Christmas on the door but this looked so much nicer -- Xmas spirit was on the rise :)

Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol

This movie had garnered so much of publicity that though we were not ready for X-mas yet, we made time for the movie. Yes, we saw the movie on a weekday two days before X-mas. It was a nice idea - catching a movie on a weekday. Both of us felt so relaxed - it was almost as if we were dating :D Also, we were seeing it at the new multiplex near our home, Cinemax @ Total.

About Cinemax @ Total:
The new multiplex is a hop, skip, jump away from my place. Wah! The Gold Class tickets are 200 bucks a head. Wah! Wah! The Gold Class seats are huge, very comfy, and simply fantastic. Double Wah! Wah!

Image Courtesy: http://www.guardian.co.uk

About the movie:
The MI movies always have some amazing stunts and this one does not fail to impress at all - in that department. Of course, in this movie the mega stunts are actually over and done with by the time we come to the intermission. Tom cruise looks seriously old in the escape scene at the hospital. However, in the last scene, he looks clean and yumm!! Its surprising how much damage unwashed hair can do to your looks :P

Waaah: Tom Cruise is good, yet again. I was very surprised to know that he has actually performed the stunt in Dubai and did not take the help of a stunt-double. They are simply aeons away in terms of technology wen it comes to film-making. Inspite of squinting real hard, I really could not see the wires that were holding Tom - fantastic! Story was ok. Both the Arien and self realized after a few minutes that the main villain, Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) was actually the actor who played Blomkevist from "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo". He is older but is good as the villain. We had recently seen Jeremy Renner (William Brandt) in the movie "The Town". Good choices. Simon Pegg provided some comic relief and was perfect for the role he played.

Blaaah: Anil Kapoor, is not the villain as mentioned in various press releases, but can actually be described as an extra with a few dialogues. He plays the part of a foolish, rich, Indian businessman with an eye for the ladies. He is absolutely ridiculous. The scene supposedly shot in a parking lot in Mumbai, is very clearly not shot in India. While we have not yet reached tht level of spohistication wrt parking lots, the number plates of the cars also has not been modified. A colleague remarked that some of those cars have not even been launched in India. Attention to detail was clearly missing. When Tom Cruise mentions that they will be travelling to India, it almost sounds like an anti-climax punch dialogue which falls pathetically flat. WTH???!!

Worth watching once - if only to see the stunts!

The Town

This movie was the Arien's choice. I wanted to see it because the movie starred Ben Affleck. This whole week seemed so lazy that a movie seemed like a good idea :D I remember "Good Will Hunting" which was a fantastic movie. We hoped this was a good one too. It was. Not great - good. Definitely worth a watch.

This movie is yet another bank heist movie but I liked it because of the script. The movie also stars Jeremy Renner. I had not seen him in any other movie before this. He is good. Usually, movies end with the robbers walking off into the sunset with the money. This movie begins with the heist and how their life changes after that. Four friends, from Charlestown, known as the Town, plan the heist and successfully pull it off. Ben and Jeremy are close friends. As part of the heist, they take the assistant manager hostage and let her go without harming her. Ben is drawn to her. Jeremy wants no loose ends and is worried that she may recall something which may result in their capture. Ben falls in lowe with her, gets close to her and makes her fall in lowe with him all the while hiding his true identity from her.

At the same time, the police are waiting for the gang to make mistakes or plan another heist. They are blackmailed into planning another heist and what happens after that forms the rest of the story.

Christmas Celebrations

This year we welcomed Christmas with a lot less fanfare. The gifts for family members were purchased in September, when we had visited Delhi and Jaipur. We still had the marathon gift-wrapping session but we did not have to break our heads 'bout the gifts.

The Arien was on leave on the 23rd and 24th. The house was completely cleaned on 23rd. The gift-wrapping was planned for 24th but I changed the date to 23rd. The Arien was not too happy but we went ahead anyway. It took us 3 hours to complete it. Oh yes, b'cos it was my idea - the arien patiently waited for me to come home. Grrr... By the time we finished - we were dead tired and it was 9 pm. We postponed the decoration plan to 24th.

24th was a hectic day: we took my MIL shopping. We got her loong kurtas - she finds the saree pretty cumbersome and so we thot it wud be a good idea. She was in an agreeable mood and so we purchased 5 kurtas. I hope she wears them. (Fingers crossed!) We had lunch outside and then dropped her @ home. We drove by Commercial street and saw that it was decorated with bright lights and a number of folks taking pictures of the street using their cell phone cameras. It was almost 8 pm when we returned home. And then we started with the decorations. We then put up the crib, and by the time it was 12 pm on the 25th - we were not too exhausted (I think!!)

25th disappeared before we realized as we were surrounded by relatives, family members, and friends. Usually, there is so much hungama and tension surrounding X-mas that I dread it. However, this time the Arien was quite patient, did not insist that we follow smthng blindly, and did not kick up a fuss when we reached church a bit late. The Arien gets hyper @ Christmas and this time was quite unlike his usual self @ Christmas.

I am very thankful for that :D

Christmas is here!

So its that time of the year when:

• the Arien plays Christmas carols on the computer;


• the house is all decked up or at least preparations are on the way;


• we start on the gift-wrapping marathon session;


• last-minute purchases are made for items we will never need and no one keeps tabs;


• we play secret Santa @ work;


• someone dresses up as Santa @ work;


• the US folks are away on vacation and we have no mails from them for almost two weeks;


• sometimes we have a shutdown and sometimes we do not - depends on which you company you work for or on what is their policy that year;

Anyway, the song that the Arien is listening to lately is: Santa Baby. Did not know it was so popular. Almost every female singer has a version of this song. Jes FYI it is not a regular carol or a goody-goody song. If you have seen the movie P2, this song plays in the background. Its a gal's wish-list to Santa somewhat like Madonna's The Material Girl.

Goodbye 2009 - Welcome 2010

It had been a busy last few weeks of 2009. So many things happened that I totally lost track of time, events, and everything. In fact, there were many days when I did not feel like blogging (gasp!!)! I felt we were racing towards 2010 and I really wanted to be in 2009 for some more time... not that December 2009 was a gr8 month b'cos:

Disaster 1:

The Arien had been driving me nuts with his Avatar comments and so I finally said "Yes - Lets go!" on Friday evening. We booked tickets for the late evening show on saturday. I asked the senior Arien if we would like to accompany us. Surprisingly, the senior Arien agreed. Watching it on 2-D was def. a factor in our not enjoying the movie but hey effects are not everything. Plus, I recieved this very funny fwd regarding Pocahontas and Avatar tht totally killed my "Oh my" feeling.

It was a surreal experience but smwhere in the middle - I actually got bored and wanted to know if others were equally bored (first time ever), the senior Arien yawned, and the Arien was a bit surprised tht the hyped movie was not meeting his expectations :(

Disaster 2:

I had my first puncture on my bike. It happened on a Friday at work. Sunday was spent pushing the damn bike up the ramp tht leads to the entrance and the Arien dropped it off at the only place that was willing to fix it - a cycle shop. Since it was my first puncture and had hpnd after 5 looong years.. they had a hard time getting the tube out. I spent a "watthehell" twenty minutes watching the cycle shop owner's assistant do sm weird moves on my tyre as he tried to change the tube... AAhhhh!!

Disaster 3:

A bug(not the multi-legged variety) landed on my desk which required that I use all the diplomacy I had (included heavily borrowing on my reserve) as well as all my time and effort (which fyi were already on reserve). The actual fixing jes took one single day but the entire process was an absolute killjoy - Aiyooo!!

Disaster 4:

Based on the enthu showed by one of my Arien frends who had jes been to Hampi, I jumped into "Lets go to Hampi" mode till the Arien had no go but to agree. Beegest trip disaster in recent times. The Arien got bored and told me he was tired of seeing temples when in actuality we had not visited even a single temple. I got pretty depressed after visiting the ruins and was actually ready to go home. So, it was yet another disastrous turn of events.

While I spent the last few days waiting for a miracle - Nothing hpnd. I finally decided to be happy b'cos Disaster 5 did not land on my desk. For all you folks waiting for my X-mas updates - the Arien decided to get a new crib on 24th December at 8 pm. I was ready to freak out b'cos it was really too late to go shopping for the crib. Why it does not feature under a disaster is that we were suprisingly lucky in our search and the Arien had this huge smile when we placed all the statues in the crib. It was a nice X-mas with the Star attraction being shared by the new crib and the zooming in Star.

Christmas 2008

Wish you all a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. A sweet Christmas Carol for you - I hope you like it :)

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
And a happy New Year.

Glad tidings we bring
To you and your kin;
Glad tidings for Christmas
And a happy New Year!

We want some figgy pudding
We want some figgy pudding
We want some figgy pudding
Please bring it right here!

Glad tidings we bring
To you and your kin;
Glad tidings for Christmas
And a happy New Year!

We won't go until we get some
We won't go until we get some
We won't go until we get some
So bring it out here!

Glad tidings we bring
To you and your kin;
Glad tidings for Christmas
And a happy New Year!

We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a happy New Year.

Glad tidings we bring
To you and your kin;
Glad tidings for Christmas
And a happy New Year!