Monday 26 December 2011

Christmas 2011

Our Christmas was quiet and relaxed this year, certainly in contrast to the parties we had in Nottingham with relatives the previous Christmas season. We opened our presents in the morning, listened to Christmas music for most of the day, and treated ourselves to food suited to the time of the year (the cheesecake was brilliant!): this may sound uneventful and boring, but rest assured that we did have a nice time!

I took a picture of the gifts I received:

The clothing is some new sets of pyjama pants, on top of them are two bags of jelly babies, to the left is a bag containing a few bottles of soap (no, this was not a hint that I stink...I needed some more soap!), a 2012 Shakira calendar, a plastic tub of Celebrations, and four CDs (Autobiography - Ashlee Simpson, Animal + Cannibal - Kesha, the deluxe edition of Goodbye Lullaby - Avril Lavigne, and the deluxe edition of Evanescence - Evanescence). Gifts for my brother involved a similar group of items, although he had a tin of Quality Street chocolates, different music, and a different calendar. My mother received the new Christmas album by Michael Bublé plus one of his older albums, and my Dad had a new bathrobe.

Of course, we are certainly not avoiding family for the season! We are going up to Nottingham tomorrow to see our relatives then. I hope everyone has had a great time!

8 comments:

  1. I used to have that Ashlee Simpson album. Looks like you made out like a bandit. :) I will have my better post tonight. :)

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  2. Thanks! It was the first new album I listened to, and it was great! I look forward to your post. :)

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  3. For a second there I thought that Shakira calender was a vinyl record and I got very interested because I hadn't seen that photo being used as an album/single cover of hers before. :)

    I have that Ashlee Simpson album to and do like it :) (I prefer it to her second and her third to be honest). And I love that Evanescence album: my favourite track being "Swimming Home" because of its airiness and the weightlessness feeling it creates in me while I listen to it. (only 4/5 other songs have had that affect on me and thinking about it I just might right a blog post on it :))

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  4. Yes, when I first saw the picture on a bigger monitor, I thought it looked liked a vinyl record, too. :)

    I love the Ashlee Simpson album; I have not heard the other two before so I can't really compare. The most recent song of hers I've heard is "L.O.V.E."

    "Evanescence" by Evanescence is a great album as well! I was so glad I was able to be given a copy of the deluxe edition, as it contains four extra tracks and a DVD. I like "Fallen", "The Open Door", and "Evanescence" equally.

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  5. Yeah she released an album after "L.O.V.E" called Bitterweet World which isn't bad. :)

    I still have to get my copy of the deluxe edition of the album as I've been listening to the standard edition tracks on youtube for months (not listening to the extra tracks is the inititive needed to buy the deluxe edition as I don't want to ruin those tracks for myself before I buy the album). It turns out liking the three albums equally is a rare thing in an Ev fan as some people have said they hated either of the last two albums or both or love them and hated "Fallen". I do love all the albums but for different reasons which is good in my book :)

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  6. Hmm...I did not know that about some Evanescence fans! No, I appreciate all three albums, though I will admit that I did not like Evanescence when I first heard them, but they quickly grew on me and I'm really glad they did. :)

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  7. Yeah there is quite a division between the fans over what album is better than the others (at least on tumblr people seem divided on it). Yeah I didn't really give them a chance until the beginning of 2005 but have been a huge fan every since. I would suggest you to check out their pre-Fallen material (if you haven't already of course) as some of it is more acoustic driven (namely the first two EPs) and the rest has a heavy electronic influence (the demo album Origin for example). :)

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  8. I have not looked at much, if any, of the pre-"Fallen" music, but I will take your suggestion, definitely. :)

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