christmas celebrations

I had a whole post written about our first Christmas celebration of the year because it actually occurred almost an entire fortnight before the day itself. In the craziness of the lead-up to Christmas, though, it never got finished or posted. One of my resolutions for this year is to be a better blogger, but more on that in a post later this week.

We celebrated early with Tom's family because his sister, Millie, & brother-in-law, Ben, would be (should I now say were?) holidaying in Vietnam with Ben's family for Christmas.

I love Tom's family. I love how his Grandma can't hear anything, but barely wears her hearing aids (despite her son-in-law being an audiologist). I love how she makes fun of herself and I love the stories his Mama (other grandmother) tells about being brought up by Catholic nuns and going to dances hoping to meet a soldier and the long line of girls kissing their suitors goodbye outside the hostel just before curfew on a Friday night. I love how well everyone gets along and how Tom's parents welcomed my mum to the festivities and how openly they welcomed me to their Christmas festivities two Christmases ago.

We started with an array of dips and fresh bread form the markets and then moved onto fresh oysters and prawns. There was an outrageous amount of food for dinner even though there were only ten of us. Turkey, lamb, pork, steak, roast vegetables, potato bake, three or four salads ... it went on forever. The lemon tart I made for dessert was a hit, too.

My favourite part of the evening came after dinner, though. Armed with wine and santa hats we toured the neighbourhood Christmas light displays. Ben and I developed a rating system with bonus 'trick points' for installations that made good use of flashing light patterns.

On the 22nd, Tom and I hosted Orphan's Christmas for my two best friends and their partners. The night involved a failed attempt at a light walk like the one we enjoyed with Tom's family. Unfortunately no one in our area seems to care much for Christmas so it ended up being a wine-time walk with no lights to speak of. Nevertheless, the night was perfect. Tom made a roast lamb and I made another lemon tart (because if it ain't broke, don't fix it). Good company and good conversation is the best kind of christmas.

On Christmas Day itself, we went to my mum's for brunch. I love Christmas brunch with my family. Always featured are my two favourite dips, warm croissants and seemingly endless amounts of smoked salmon. It was the perfect way to spend Christmas day. My dad was over from Melbourne so he even came too which made it even better. It's the first Christmas with both of my parents for about six or seven years I think. We drank mimosas in the sunshine and ate fruit and I taught my Popple to use his new ereader and my Nana rolled her eyes at his acquisition of yet another gadget that she cannot understand.

We spent the remainder of Christmas day driving to Naracoorte and then drinking beers in the garden as the sun set. Along the way we just had to stop and take a picture of this sign:

Hope you all had wonderful Christmases and spent time with those you love.

Back in a day or two with some words about and pictures of our little road trip. xx