A Very Aussie Christmas - Ho ho ho!

To those of you who have not experience a hot Christmas, let me tell you... it's hard to even imagine how different it is to a cold snowy Christmas around the fire. Christmas in Australia is a wonderful event. You get to wear shorts or a sun dress rather than flannel pj's, play outside in the sun rather than snow, put on sunscreen and sunnies rather than a hat, scarf, mittens and slippers and we eat yummy seafood on the barbie rather than warm comfort food. I do miss cold Christmas and all the traditions and comfort that go along with what I'm used to, but I like to think of Aussie Christmas as a bit of an adventure! And let me tell you... this year it definitely was!

Andrew and I decided that Christmas Eve would be a good day to move from our little unit in Keilor to a big beautiful brand spanking new townhouse in Newport that Anna and Ron have spent the last few years building. It's been a work in progress for ages but let me tell you it was worth the wait and was a great (although hot and tiring) start to Christmas. Here's a few pictures of the new place!

The photos above are how the place looked on Christmas morning... I was pretty impressed at how quickly we unpacked and set up most of the house. Yay us! Big thanks to Anna, Ron, Laura and Tim for all their help!

Andrew started off Christmas morning testing out the new kitchen by making me fried eggs on toast with some yummy tomatoes that he grew in our back garden. (Yes, all Andrew's plants made the trip in the back of the moving truck from Keilor to Newport with only 1 casualty, poor little tomato plant snapped in 2!)

Next we stuck Alfred and ourselves in the car and headed over to Anna and Ron's place for Christmas lunch! Anna had beautiful Christmas decorations and chef Tim prepared a delicious feast of shrimp, calamari, fish and steak. Anna and Laura made some delicious salads as well. I love Christmas at Nana Anna's! Never leave hungry!

 While all of this cooking and preparing was going on, Andrew helped out by finding alcohol under the kitchen floor (I believe it was 20 year old port, which was actually delicious!) and babysitting the 3 puppies. Aren't I lucky to have such a helpful husband!

After a lovely and verry yummo Christmas lunch, Tim made us all Bomb Alaska complete with blow torch (shout out to A2-Drewseph!) and sparklers!

Then, all of a sudden, the skies opened up and it started to downpour with a special little Christmas addition of hail! Only in Melbourne! I heard it didn't snow on Christmas back in Boston so I thought it kind of cool that all the way over here in sunny, warm Australia, we had a hail storm on Christmas day! Luckily, there was no damage to our cars or the house in Bacchus Marsh. We found out a week later when we went back to clean up the Keilor unit that most of the roof tiles on the unit complex had been damaged and replaced! Yikes! Thank goodness we had the intuition to move out of there the day before! We win. And by we, I mean our cars, which would have had mucho hail damage!

  Love the picture of Laura above watching the storm from the window. Too cute. Anyway, after lunch we were all so full and tired from watching the storm that we snuggled in on the comfy couches and just chatted the afternoon away. Some of us (cough, Ron, cough) even slipped in a little nap! (Sorry Ron, the picture was just way too classic not to post! This is what happens when your daughter-in-law comes hand in hand with a camera!) I think it's a sign of a very successful Christmas.

After driving home in the rain the sun decided to peak out to reveal a beautiful stormy sky.

What a beautiful ending to a relaxing, warm, family Aussie Christmas. Heart.