I got an iPhone for Christmas!

So what’d you get for Christmas? I got an iPhone 4. And though I’d been hinting heavily to Lisa about getting one, I honestly didn’t expect to receive one!

What was really funny was that Lisa gave me a decoy present first – a Bluray player. The box was clearly too big to be an iPhone. I flirted with the idea that it might be…gasp…an iPad, but the parcel was too heavy.

When I discovered it was a Bluray player, I was initially crestfallen. This is a present for everybody! Then I looked at it a bit closer – not only was it backward compatible with all our DVDs, but it can connect to our home network and it can play media from USB drives. This is fantastic, because I have a ton of videos in AVI format on a 500Gb hard disk that I can now just hook straight into the Bluray and play! Previously, I had to hook my laptop up to the TV, then play the media through the laptop, so this was amazing.

So engrossed was I in the features of this gadget, that I didn’t even notice Lisa throwing another smaller box at me…I barely took my eyes away from the Bluray player.

At this point, I genuinely had no idea that there was another big present. When I opened the package and saw what it was I was actually overwhelmed for a moment. These were twoamazing, expensive presents. And I’d dreamed of getting an iPhone for ages – I suspected it briefly when Lisa sold my old Sony Erickson phone a while back.

Now, my father-in-law has a wonderful turn of phrase for things he doesn’t like or understand:Shite. Looking at the iPhone over Christmas dinner, he issued his usual judgement. “It’s shite. What does it even do?” Well, what doesn’t it do?

It’s got great social media apps – I can update Twitter and Facebook from wherever I am. It’s got maps, calendar, music, stacks of features built in. I’ve downloaded Monopoly, Scrabble and Sudoku for my iPhone. What else? High quality camera for still pictures and video. Amazing for capturing little fun moments with the family. The built-in voice recorder is amazing quality. The multimedia capabilities of the iPhone are astounding – all in that tiny little box.

On New Year’s Eve, we used the Skype app to chat face to face with our friend in America – for free. I’ve used Facetime to chat to Lisa – it’s fantastic, but a bit frivolous. I’ve discovered the joys of FourSquare – a fun app that checks you in wherever you are and tells you what’s going on around you.

I’ve probably only touched the tip of the iceberg – like today I bought an app that allows you to have SSH access to web servers. Being a web administrator, it’s handy to be able to check server status and restart services remotely from wherever I am.

It’s so much more than a phone, and I’m so grateful to Lisa for being a real darling and buying me the best toy ever for Christmas!

So, over to you – did you get any cool stuff for Christmas?

Jostein Gaarder – The Christmas Mystery

Last year I had an idea that I’d like to read Jostein Gaarder’s The Christmas Mystery to the children. At the time, I read it myself, but decided to hold off reading it to the kids.

The Christmas Mystery is a charming little story, told through an advent calendar, of a girl (Elisabet) who chases a lamb through a department store and across country. On her travels, she meets various figures from the nativity scene and discovers that they are all travelling across time to Bethlehem and the birth of Christ.

The story is told via a little boy, who is given the Advent calendar by an old shopkeeper and told that it is a magic calendar. When Joachim opens the first door on the calendar, a piece of paper falls out and he discovers the story of Elisabet, and each day her journey unfolds and her meetings with new members of the Nativity.

Anyway, I’ve been reading The Christmas Mystery with Rachel for a couple of days now. Granted, we’re a bit behind and need to catch up by a few days if we’re to finish on the 24th December!

I think she’s liking the story so far, as she’s repeating the tale to Lisa and her aunts. In fact, when she was given an advent calendar as a gift, she was a bit disappointed that a piece of paper didn’t fall out!

I’ve since found out that reading The Christmas Mystery has become a family tradition for some people – one review on Amazon.co.uk said:

Our family started reading The Christmas Mystery about 5 years ago and it is now a very special Advent activity and a way to come together as a family in a busy season. While it is a bit confusing at first- the story moves backward through time and geography-it is so rich and has so many layers that it’s absolutely worth reading.

There are bits that obviously confuse Rachel, but I try and skip these or simplify them as best I can. However, after we read the night’s chapter, I ask her to tell me what happened in the story that night, and then we look at the picture on the next chapter to see what the next tale will be about.

If I remember correctly, the end of the tale moved me the last time I read it, so I’m looking forward to Rachel’s reactions! Anyway, I’ll maybe post a few updates here before Christmas!