Merry Merry

I'm sitting in my living room, about to get ready to go for a walk. The city is just about the most gorgeous this time of the month. We've got our festival decorations up and the Christmas tree is so pretty and my home feels calm and festive and warm and cozy. And I'm thinking, you know what? I've got it good. This is a great way to spend the day. Then again, it just isn’t too early to crawl into bed.

If one has to feel this holiday spirit, there's only one way to do it. Throw a party. Fortunately, I’ve always had a good number of friends who have been hosting Christmas parties over the years. This time it looked like the usual party throwers were either in love, or in Goa. So I decided I’d invite a house full of close friends, serve up a full course meal with different types of holiday cakes, wine and tarts, while everyone gets warm, toasty and sugar-rushed.
In the world we live in, it's so easy to evade old practices and just live your life from one harried day to another, so a night like this is even more of a treat. It was truly one fantastic night with friends and merriness. And coming off of Tuesday night's holiday rush it's a perfect build up to Christmas. I'm off to sip on my wine and watch an episode of "Dexter”. But before that it is time for a little Christmas music roundup. Enjoy the tracks below:

Sarah Mclachlan ‘Winter song’


Sting ‘Gabriel's Message’


Boyz II Men ‘The Birth of Christ’


Wishing you season's greetings, great music and all that warm fuzziness. Merry Christmas!

I'll admit it. I’m a sucker for the whole Christmas caroling bit complete with a sing-along book. Sometimes, I even leave Christmas music on auto play for the entire day. In fact, my entire house is now specially decorated to ensure that I feel embraced by the Christmas spirit at every moment of the day, what with the ornament-laden tree, green and red knick-knacks, sparkling silver stars, glittered candles, and more. Of course, this only works if I never leave the house.

The weekend started with an office party — this or any type of forced work gatherings — are hardly an assured fun riot. But your absence is duly noted if you choose to stay away from one of these gatherings. If you do miss it you’ll hear stories about how that guy from the other process threw up in his shoe or how some guy and girl were all over each other the entire time. I suppose that that’s the best part about office parties: seeing what everyday co-workers are like outside of the office — and whether they’re going to do something stupid (especially since alcohol’s on the house).I went for the Christmas bash at a club called ‘HINT’ thinking that people might open up in other interesting ways. But I couldn’t find anyone fun and that’s really my fault. Deep down, I’m still that school kid, too shy to participate in anything without an intentional invitation (or copious amounts of alcohol). I was much the same way when I met Ru, Ck and Shreyas. They’d make friends with anyone, and strike up conversations with just about anybody.
I left the party feeling not too sad. The night had all the ingredients for a good time — Christmas, friends, colleagues, alcohol, a buffet and they did work well in combination. In retrospect, it wasn’t a terrible idea to go; I just wasn’t in the mood. I had had a long frenzied day and it has been a long time since I’ve spent Christmas without someone special. My New Year’s resolution: This year I’m going to get used to Singlehood.

Saturday night was at Runa’s and the entire crew was invited.
We were a big, loud crazy bunch singing carols, playing pictionary and trying to get the barbecue started.

Runa's Christmas Tree

A Beautiful Barbecue

Tony at the Grill

I never realized how much I missed Christmas, until I saw my friends unwrap their gifts.

I bring you the song ‘Mary Did you know’ today for a multitude of reasons. The first is that I quite honestly think this track sung by Clay Aiken, is a good seasonal song. There is a sense of December, of cold filled lit nights, of chilly winds, and the miracle of the birth of Christ associated with this season, that permeates every layer of this song. In the vocals and the music there is awe and veneration and the crescendo of the bridge makes you hold your breath. There is Christmas, happiness and goodies and there is even hope, admiration for a beautiful month. Runa, Ruan and I have also sung this track at Christmas concerts; hence it acquires a very special place in our hearts.

Enjoy the weekend my dear readers and keep coming back for more.

It’s become visible to me that I have been infected with the Christmas spirit (no, not the alcoholic sort). Normally, I’m quite cynical about the whole thing but I’ve just been so happy lately… guess it’s all the colours.

(As promised, here are pictures of my hard work)






Today it was all quite odd. I got all cheerful and even a little syrupy when I heard a couple of carols. I found myself singing along to them at work; taking pleasure in it - that’s right – actually plastering a smile on my face all day long rather than worrying about my work.
I also spent some time this evening putting up the tree with my dad’s help (It’s finally complete!), feeling all Christmassy with Christmas music playing in the background cheering us on. What concerns me more though is that I willingly wanted to put up the tree without my dad asking me to.

So, am I ill? Do I need to go the doctor? Or am I just getting soft in my old age? Answers on a postcard (or email) please!

Today was also the beginning of the Christmas party merry-go-round, starting with a Christmas lunch at our main office and I was able to be in public without making an idiot of myself at least once. So the meal went well, people were eating and chatting, everyone was happy and I did get to meet my favourite blogger.

And finally, my horoscopes have informed me that as one door closes, another opens, that someone special will be arriving shortly and that I will learn new work skills. So, if I’ve got it right then I will lose my job, get a new one and probably have an affair with my new boss! Great. Something to look forward to this Christmas then!

I have stumbled upon a few Christmas tracks that are definitely worth a listen. I highly doubt any of these are really good, but they’re at least worth a quick listen and they’ve found their way onto a Christmas album I’ve slapped together.
The music is equally as iconic as the festival itself, if not more so, having insinuated its way into the Christmas ethos in the irrevocable way that only music could. At any rate, for us -- plum cakes, wine, candy canes and caroling -- this is what Christmas is all about. Here’s Boys II Men with ‘The Christmas Song’. Happy holidays, everybody!

Yay! It's officially full holiday season here in B’lore City. The sparkling decorations and lights, the overall feeling of warmth and cheer...well, as silly as it may sound; it makes life feel truly magical at times, despite the huge number of lay-offs that had taken place last week.
There are only ten days until Christmas, and I've done nothing. Well, next to nothing: I haven’t acquired presents for my crew yet- just gift wrapping ideas. The tree is still getting decorated. Helped mom with making a few fruitcakes, but she hasn’t prepared the tons of eatables that she usually makes. Right now, though, December seems just like November, only colder and darker.

I'm aware, readers, that there's a certain redundancy to most of my posting: one more account of work or love, interspersed with pictures, songs and a write-up of a musician. And sometimes I feel like I should give you more, but I have compelling reasons to record a large majority of my life and music history on the blog. For one thing, it's fun to write about, and I remain hopeful that recording my experiences and knowledge in a substantially honest manner keeps me from being too much like some music blog or life blog I read where at first I'm very interested in, but then I see entry after entry with the same clichés, and I start to think that the entries are largely unreal. The main reason that I write so much about my life and music is because my memory for personal detail is never all that great, and I do this by maintaining a searchable record.

Let’s move on to a special holiday episode of All I Want for Christmas:

Dear Mr. Claus,

I have been an exceptionally good girl this year and wanted to tell you what I want for Christmas.

I wanna be rolling in money, celebrated and influential
Step on all my rivals and never do a thing
I wanna be rolling in money, celebrated and influential
So all I have to do for years is sit around and sing.

And while you are at it and if it's not too much trouble, Mr. Claus, I could really use the ability to exhale flames. Not because I want to reduce anyone to ashes. I just think breathing fire would be hot and my friends would love me even more than they do now.

Peace and holiday love,

Eve.

We've officially entered the Christmas season and until the 25th, Christmas music will be played here on EC. I usually take pleasure in the music; until I've listened to so much of it that by the time Christmas morning gets here I'm ready to thump the first person who plays a Christmas song. There are songs that I wished were played more often, like the Drifters version of "White Christmas" - Attention readers- you might just like this. It features Bill Pinkney on lead bass and Clyde McPhatter on tenor. When I played it, it was fun to listen to-- a cappella with that 70’s wap-shoo-wap charm. I’m not very fond of listening to this kind of music, but these guys actually have some ability to harmonize seamlessly. Its slick stuff and I play it often.

So, if you've had it with the oldies then give this a try. Well, that's all I've got for today. Stay tuned, kids.