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Sydney, Australia
Dec 25th - Christmas Australian style
The words for the day are “Christmas
Australian style”. Christmas in countries with an English
background allow for the visiting of two sets of relatives to
occur on two different days. Christmas day is one family,
followed by the other side on Boxing day (the 26th). Our day
began early, with a traditional service at the neighborhood
Anglican church. There isn’t a Catholic church in walking
distance. The pastor had a very nice sermon and we sang lots
of verses of Christmas songs much to TD‘s chagrin.
 The
Claydons were waiting to open presents when we returned. Linda
had bought some items for us and we had the package from
Maumee to open. It was a very nice morning. L&I gave each
their boys a big surprise gift. Martin got a computer for his
room and Daniel got his own saxophone. They were thrilled. We
were happy with our new clothes, books, and other little
goodies. It was hard buying presents since volume and weight
are such an issue.
Ivor had the turkey in the oven early and continued to work
away on the dinners accompaniments. A few friends were coming
at 12:30 for dinner. The house was decorated beautifully with
Christmas decorations, fresh ivy and lovely candle
arrangements. Linda has a real
 flair
for flowers and decorations. TD was in the pool with the boys
when the guests arrived. It got bloody hot today and by the
end of the afternoon it was 40C (over 100 degrees). One family
who came had 2 boys, Mark aged 15 and Andrew age 12, who
immediately jumped in the pool to play with the others. TD got
out and joined the adults for champagne and hors ’douvres.
Ivor’s meal was set for 1:30 and was served buffet style on
the dinette table. It began with oysters and prawns. Then
moved on to turkey, ham and several delicious side dishes.
The kids moved on after eating and the adults sat around the
tables and talked and talked. Linda had told us that “it’s
often 4 hours of sitting, drinking and then more eating”. TD
spent the day up and down from the chairs cleaning up the
kitchen and dishes. Then doing more dishes. It was wonderful
having TD as the butler. Linda usually has that responsibility
and was delighted to have some of the enormous number of tasks
done by good ole Sue.
 The
boys were finally talked back into the pool from the A/C’d
house. They ended up staying in the water for hours. We adults
felt it was too hot to move out on to the patio and watch and
therefore remained at the dinner tables drinking more wine.
Linda and Ivor prepared the leftovers for our next food fest
and had it laid out at about 7 pm. This of course was
accompanied by more white and red wine We had wondered why
Ivor had made so much food but found that it was pretty well
devoured by the end of the night. Linda’s Christmas pudding
was a scrumptious treat as was the homemade passion fruit ice
cream that Robin had brought. Guests left after 9 feeling full
and happy after the days festivities. We were exhausted but
found the energy for a swim after putting the boys to bed.
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Today we had a Christmas party that had four families
including us. One of the other families had two boys ages 15
and 12. The kids spent most of the day in the pool fooling
around. The thing that we did in the pool that was the most
fun was having the older two boys throw us in. They held us by
our ankles and wrists, swung us back and forth three times and
then let us go flying into the pool.
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Boxing Day...» |
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