New Year's Eve, with my whole family in town, we gathered at my parents for a family Christmas. We planned a traditional dinner and it turned out to be a 36 degree day. Thankfully we didn't have to cook much in mum's kitchen but the little we did was hot work. I love hanging out with my family and this Christmas I enjoyed it even more as I'm preparing to live overseas for a couple of years.
We had an overabundant spread of ham, roast chicken and roast lamb with an assortment of veggies. Yum and very filling. We all sat around the big table. It's an extra long table my li'l bro whacked together years ago for a dinner party and has been living in mum and dad's rumpusroom ever since. It fits the 16 of us just nicely. After the mega meal we decided to break for the sharing of presents.
Apart from simply being surrounded by my family, my favourite part of Christmas is this time. It's fun with kids too coz they bring such excitement to it. And it was also Zachary's first Christmas. So he got the traditional Auntie Kelly-made quilt. We stretched it out a long time opening one present at a time. Whoever unwrapped a present selected another to hand to someone else. There were some fun and well thought of presents. Some of my treasures are my lovely knitpro circular needles, chocolate pasta to cook and eat with icecream, a little book by Lonely Planet called British Language & Culture which is both fascinating and insightful and the four dvds of X-men.
Since the weather had finally dropped in temperature we headed outside for a play. The cousins had fun being up late and playing together in the cool. It was about 9pm by this stage. We decided to stay out for dessert.
Mum made the traditional plum pudding and the rest of us brought chocolate mousse, trifle, apple crumble and icecream. Unfortunately the mosquitos decided to feast too. We headed back inside straight after dessert.
We sat around talking and whatever else for a while until my sister and family left to take kids home to bed. Then the other kids were put to bed as well. Eventually Esther, Matt and I amused ourselves with CarDcarsonne and Kylie flicked on the fireworks as we saw the new year roll in. This was followed shortly by setting off to find our beds.
New Year's Day we all headed back to Mum and Dad's to eat leftovers and hang out. We pottered around, ended up indulging in a dessert lunch and then five of us had a good game of Matt's new Carcassone expansion pack. It was just one of those relaxing, typical fun times. The type I'll miss in the next couple of years. A fantastic couple of days spent with family. Loved it!
3 comments:
I didn't turn the fireworks on... It was someone else over the other side of the room...
Oh, there was someone over there? Hmm.
I think mum turned them on.
It was a good couple of days. I've missed just hanging out with family and doing nothing much together.
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