This morning I woke to sunshine and 60 degree temperatures, by the afternoon it reached close to 90. SM was awoken by his brother asking for his help with some huge, cumbersome gift that needing shifting into the living room. The gift was his mother's new brown leather lounge suite. I got up and plodded drowsily into the lounge looking for signs of eagerly awaiting children ready to pounce on their gifts. Oddly, the kids were quietly seated at the breakfast table busying themselves with their new craft projects that their parents had wisely set aside for them to work on first thing in the morning while they waited for the rest of us to wake up and have their breakfast. By the time I had finished my brekkie and waited another hour or so for everyone to gather around the tree I was beginning to feel a bit anxious to get on with unwrapping the gifts. I wasn't sure how many gifts I would end up with other than the one from SM, but I was really happy to simply see what everyone else got and gave each other. I was glad, however, to receive some very thoughtful and much appreciated gifts from SM's parents, grandparents and sister's family. My presents were a pair of pink pajamas, a bottle of rose-scented body lotion, a movie gift card (for me and SM) and a new lavender colored Motorola Razor cell phone and book shop gift card from SM. As much as I loved all my gifts, my gift to SM took the cake. I bought him a helicopter flying lesson which he had talked of getting himself some time ago, but he had decided against it when he found out how much it cost. I was so excited to give it to him not only because it cost me the better part of one weeks pay, but because I knew the look on his face alone would be more than worth the cost. See, it is more about the giving than the receiving and I certainly got the reaction I had been waiting for when he realized what it was. Everyone else was amazed as well. I susupected SM was the envy of the other men who all kept talking about it and wanted to look at the details on the gift packet that described the lesson.
SM's nephew acted out the part of Father Christmas by wearing the red Santa cap and passing the gifts around. Once all the gifts had been unwrapped, I cranked up the iTunes with some holiday music and the women started their cooking escapades. Meanwhile, the kids played with their new toys and the men drank a few cold ones and chatted on the patio. Since the arrival of Josh's family there has been a table tennis marathon and the kids got a trampoline from Santa that was set up in Josh's parent's lawn. I had a go at doing some cheerleader jumps on it for a bit of morning excercise.
The dinner was another feast even bigger than the one on Christmas Eve. The table was set and adorned with sparkling glitter, silver garland, confetti poppers, and Christmas crackers with prizes and colored tissue paper crowns inside - a throwback to old English tradition that many Australians still practice at Christmastime. Everyone waited to eat until everyone was seated and the Christmas crackers were popped. To pop the crackers we crossed our arms and held on to each others crackers making a chain around the table. Everyone pulled them open at the same time causing an explosion of popping noises and spilling toys and colorful tissue paper crowns onto the table. Next everyone popped their confetti poppers at the same time sending ribbons of tiny tissue streamers flying around the table. It was all really quite festive.
After this ceremonious opening of crackers and poppers we finally dug into our meals. Most of us wore our tissue paper crowns throughout the meal except a couple of the guys, including SM, whose heads are too big to wear them. The Christmas dinner consisted of roast pork, leftover roast chicken, ham, prawns with cocktail and tartar sauces, pasta salad, roast pumpkin, spinach and feta salad, roast veggies, and a Southwestern Pull Apart Bread that I made - a holiday tradition from my home. Despite there not being any turkey on the menu to make us drowsy, most of us still had "a bit of a lie down" after dinner. I still haven't taken my nap, but motivation is key to blogging so I must do it while the moment is ripe.
Tomorrow is Boxing Day - a big piss-up while watching the cricket on TV. My friend Grethe is back from Norway for a few weeks over the holidays to visit her boyfriend who is still living here. Therefore, I will be spending my Boxing Day in the poshy part of town at a party at Grethe's boyfriend's chic East Perth digs from which I also watched the fireworks display over the river on Australia Day earlier this year. I'll try to remember to take my camera and lots of photos. The day after that is my birthday - 29, eeks!!! Over the next three days I will attempt to make up for my blogging slackishness over the last two months by keeping you abreast of all the holiday activities and celebrations by blogging three consecutive days in a row!
Tomorrow is Boxing Day - a big piss-up while watching the cricket on TV. My friend Grethe is back from Norway for a few weeks over the holidays to visit her boyfriend who is still living here. Therefore, I will be spending my Boxing Day in the poshy part of town at a party at Grethe's boyfriend's chic East Perth digs from which I also watched the fireworks display over the river on Australia Day earlier this year. I'll try to remember to take my camera and lots of photos. The day after that is my birthday - 29, eeks!!! Over the next three days I will attempt to make up for my blogging slackishness over the last two months by keeping you abreast of all the holiday activities and celebrations by blogging three consecutive days in a row!
Merry Christmas to all and to all... a goodnight ;)
(Christmas sunset over Childow)
