Christmas

I woke up bright and early on the morning of Christmas Eve.  Lindsey had said that we needed to leave at about 7 to get the fruit and veg and various other bits and pieces for Christmas Day.  The sun was just beginning to come up and it was just starting to get light.  That probably meant it was a little after 6.  Fortunately, before I leaped out of bed and started dashing about so as to be ready on time, I checked the time.  It was 2:15!  The "sun" was, in fact, a solar lamp out in the yard!!!  I went back to sleep.

I was awake and ready to leave by 7.  Again :-D  We headed to Wilson's to get the fruit and veg.  It was fairly busy but hadn't been open long so nothing like as busy as it would almost certainly be later in the day.  We went to Coles for the supermarket provisions.  That too was fairly, but not too busy.  Then we killed a bit of time until Dan Murphy's opened at 9.  We got there, oh about five past nine.  And it was packed.  Absolutely packed. By the time we came out again, the car park was chockers and Dan Murphy's was even more packed.  Glad we got there early!  We took all the shopping home and were back by 10:00.  We were ready for Christmas.  More or less

Stella and Tony arrived from Mount Martha at lunch time. They had come on the ferry from Sorrento to Queenscliff and driven up from Geelong.  Ian's brother, John, and Jane his wife dropped in in the afternoon on their way somewhere else.   It was a pleasant and quite relaxed Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning.  Tony and I took ourselves off to church.  We had decided to try one that neither of us had been to before.  And old, traditional looking Victorian church.  I was a bit worried when I walked in and saw that they had decorated the chancel with a Christmas tree and four yellowish comfy chairs.  I was a bit more worried when I found that they are intending to have a very "different" Christmas service.  It certainly was different. We talked very briefly about the people whose houses had been burned out in the bushfires a few days before, and the refugees. And then never spoke of them again. We sang some very odd songs. And a couple of Christmas carols. The vicar proclaimed a sermon that lasted for about half an hour and which said very little and was filled with some very peculiar notions. Much too fond of the sound of his own voice was that vicar.  The notices went on almost for ever too.  We had to imagine what God might give us as a Christmas present, if we were sat in his lounge room around his Christmas tree.  I was hoping for patience, lest I rise up and smite the prolix vicar.  Turned out it wasn't patience, but Jesus.  God granted me patience anyway - no vicar smiting happened on Christmas Day. But I think I might not bother going there again

Eventually the service finished and we went back to Mount Helen. And put up a tent.  As you do on Christmas morning!

As the afternoon progressed, revellers began to arrive.  The regular things happened.  Present exchanges. Backyard Cricket. Eating, drinking and making merry.  More drinking and merriment. It was all good.

We saw a pair of wedge tailed eagles circling around when the backyard cricket was happening.

The people sleeping in the tent forgot to close the awning when they went to bed, and got wet in the thunderstorm that rolled in in the wee smalls.

And my new, not yet acquired, kitchen got its first present. This is what the family bought me for my 60th birthday and Christmas present:

Click on the food processor to reach the Christmas photo album