kerravonsen | Christmas is i-commin' in

Let's see...

Yesterday about 13:30 I was surprised by a ring on my doorbell. Expecting a parcel, I opened the door to find my nephew, my sister and my brother-in-law on the doorstep, down from Canberra. This only really half-surprised me, because the mass confusion that communications seemed to be this Christmas had them arriving either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. They had told me Tuesday, but Mum first rang me up on Monday morning causing me panic because she thought they were arriving then (and because I hadn't gotten a reply when I rang them Sunday night) and then she looked in her diary and it said they were arriving Wednesday. So all was confusion.

Fortunately I had almost finished clearing the bed in the Spare Ooom, so there wasn't really any great problem. They unloaded, brother-in-law moved the tree out of Spare Ooom into lounge. We had lunch (including ham and cherries from the Work Hamper) and then, discussions and negotiations over lunch ended up with me and B-I-L at the local shopping "square", me to buy bread, mince pies and Christmas pudding, and he to get a huge list of other things. I ended up broiling in the sun because the place we'd figured on for me to sit and wait for him had hardly any shade, and I was wearing black. Oh well. It was otherwise quite pleasant weather -- if one was in the shade.

When we came back, nephew was watching Christmas cartoons, sister was sewing her Christmas dress. She offered to help me wrap my presents (said wrapping of which I had done zilch) an offer which I gladly accepted.

They had, by this time, covered all the windows of the Spare Ooom with aluminium foil and masking tape. This because my B-I-L likes his sleep, the light wakes him up, and my curtains are not sufficiently heavy for his needs. Hey, it's their aluminium foil. So long as they take it down when they leave (and they will), it's no skin off my nose. They are actually camping out in my Spare Ooom, there being only one bed there; two of them are sleeping on air mattresses they brought themselves. Hey, if they don't mind, I don't mind.

My nephew had been wanting to play one of my board games all afternoon, so I introduced them to Elfenland, and we started playing a bit, then it was dinner time (yum, nice greek salad and steak, and doubly nice since I didn't cook it). I can't remember if we played more Elfenland after dinner or not, but we certainly left it in an unfinished state when nephew went to bed.

Then we watched half (actually, a bit more than half, because we were so engrossed) an episode of Highlander -- one of my new DVDs, season one, "Band of Brothers". Ah, what a suave villan he was. (Kathryn stops herself before she starts raving about the Highlander Down Under con where he was a guest)

Soooo, that was yesterday.

Today. Christmas Eve.

I sit here, and the big unfinished thing is that the Tree is sitting in the lounge, completely bare and undecorated. We just didn't get around to decorating it. There's some talk of decorating it tomorrow, but I have little faith that it will happen.

So what did we do instead? I woke up quite late, to find the house deserted, but evidence of breakfasts consumed lying around. I assumed they'd gone off for a threatened walk (and possible walk included to shopping centre). I got leasurely up, showered, dressed, breakfasted. Phone message while in shower said they were at Mum & Dad's place, and would be back before noon, so I worried not, and indeed, they did return.

We finished the game of Elfenland, and nephew and I tied first with 18 points (nobody made it to their home towns). Then sister and nephew dashed off, and B-I-L commenced cooking their "shimmer salad" for tomorrow. Then we watched a little Wierd Al, then sister returned with parents in tow for lunch. And just as everyone was coming in, a parcel arrived for me -- it was a box of Mistral's famous cookies! Whee! No, I did not eat them, as we were about to have lunch. But I did open it and peek. Foil and wax paper and popcorn, and the edge of a shortbread covered with red sugar (grin).

Then B-I-L took parents home and sister made beeline for shower to wash hair, and she said she'd help clear up later, so I took dish one at a time to dishwasher (limp, limp, limp), and filled it... and then she got out of shower. I think we basically pottered around getting ready to leave and stuff, because they'd promised to be at brother's place about 4pm to help. So I packed some beadwork to do (because I didn't think I would be part of the help brigade, too much standing/walking) and got dressed (in the nice caftan Judith gave me) and we went, and indeed, I did beadwork in a corner most of the afternoon (after first helping my brother to determine that his computer problem was definitely a hardware problem).

So, then the grandparents of both sides arrived, and The Aunts (my mother's two sisters, who live near us, or, should I say, we live near them -- they were there first). This is kind of a new tradition with us (only been going a couple of years) to have Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve (but without the pudding) so that we can actually enjoy it in the cool of the evening instead of the middle of a hot day, and so those cooking for it can concentrate on the cooking, and not be left out of our usual Christmas morning festivities. So, we had there, brother, sister-in-law and their four children, sister, brother-in-law and their son, me, my parents, the Aunts, and my sister-in-law's parents, sitting around two tables on their back patio/verandah, with citronella torches burning. It was indeed a feast, though some would say not traditional, since we didn't just have poultry as the meat, but lamb and ham as well. Mind you, Dad pointed out that poultry isn't traditional, it's goose that is traditional. But anyway, what's really traditional is a roast, and a feast, which this definitely was. But I get ahead of myself, because before the food, we had (engineered by my sister-in-law) Bible readings (and candles) on Peace, Joy, Love, and Hope. Then we had Communion, led by my sister-in-law's father, who's a Uniting Church minister. We used grape juice, so the kids could participate too. And the prayer was then led by Dad (who's an Anglican minister). And then the food came out.

For the meats, lamb and ham, and chicken (the chicken, so tender, contributed by Dad, with carrots and potatoes and stuffing all cooked in a crock-pot). For vegetables, not only roast potatoes but scalloped potatoes, and beetroot, and an American-style concoction of mashed sweet potato, carrots, pureed apricots, sugar and spices. Also a dish of "greens" -- green beans, zuchinni and a few mushrooms. And gravy of course, and mint sauce for the lamb, except that I never end up having mint sauce with my lamb because I like gravy so much anyway.

Fizzy drinks for the kids and teetotallers, and wine for those who like the fruit of the vine. Much pleasant conversing was had by all, ranging from the description of a day at the races, to a discussion of The Matrix.

Dessert, yes, we had dessert, but in keeping with this new tradition, it wasn't Christmas pudding, since we figured that what happens in the traditional tradition is that by the time everyone's finished eating a full roast dinner, everyone's too full to actually enjoy something rich like pudding, so we decided we will have the pudding tomorrow, with all its trappings, in its own glory. So instead we had a pavlova supplied by my sister-in-law's mother. Yum.

Most of the guests then left, but sister and B-I-L wanted to stay (after all they're usually in Canberra and they wanted to catch up) so I curled up in a corner and read a book. We didn't actually leave until about 20 to 10, so no wonder I was tired.

But I thought I'd better write this up anyway. (yawn)