Christmas Day

Christmas Day this year was celebrated with a small gathering of family at our house. The air conditioner was on all day and night because we reached 44 degrees yesterday! Holy cow! I am so glad we have the air con. We would have died without it. Overall a great day was had by all and everyone enjoyed the food and company. The usual goofy Christmas traditions were conducted such as the silly jokes, noisy noise-makers and the paper hats. I took the cooks perogative and declined to wear one. I just can't do it :) We had a turkey main course followed by profiteroles and chocolate tart with fresh berries and the juiciest cherries ever for dessert. I have to say the jokes were pretty much the worst I have ever heard in all of my christmas's. The joke of the day? What do you call a blind dinosaur? A Do-you-think-he-saurus. LOL I love Christmas. Its such a great excuse for getting everyone together and acting silly. After all. If you can't be silly in front of your own family, when can you be? Merry Christmas everyone and best wishes for the new year! Who could resist this hunk 'o spunk!? Ooh la la ;)

Christmas Eve

My family have developed a tradition over the years of celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve. As our extended family has grown dramatically recently it is a really great way of making sure we catch up while still getting to keep up our other "family" committments as our own families grow. We have dinner at my parents and this year it was preceeded with a small game of backyard cricket and some frivolity in the pool. We had some great laughs - in particular the marsh fly that flew up Grant's shorts as Sean was coming in to whack it. I have never seen Grant move so fast to avoid Sean's hand coming down on his nether-region! LOL I took the opportunity to play around with a little lens flaring as the sun set and got some nice shots. My nephew had a small accident a few days prior where he ran mouth first into a coffee table. Poor little guy. It looked so painful but he played and laughed like nothing was wrong. He still made an adorable Harry Potter. He looks like a real old man in one of them with his belly out, shoulders down and his upper lip hanging over his lower lip. Kids make Christmas so much more enjoyable. Merry Christmas! Just because I can't believe the height Sean got with Liam - here it is in full shot. Must be the closest thing to flying ;)

Christmas prep

Let me paint the picture for you. Its 32 degrees, I have the air con on while I am glazing our ham and making cranberry sauce trying to get a leg up for Christmas lunch. Bing Crosby is serenading me with Let It Snow and I am being stalked by one of my dogs while the ham bakes. Ah. Christmas in Australia. Don 'cha love it! Without all the contradictions it just wouldn't be the same. Lily keeps hovering around my feet waiting for some morsel to fall on the ground - perhaps she's thinking if she's lucky it may be an entire 4kg ham shoulder that falls. I caught her gazing into the oven at the ham while I was out of the kitchen. Busted! She really looks like she 'needs' that ham!