An Almost Aussie Christmas

I started off Christmas by opening up the first of my “birthday” presents that had only just arrived in the mail almost two weeks late. It happened to be a pair of gingerbread men earrings, which were perfect for the occasion (you can see me modeling them here).

I met up with Daniel to drive to his family’s house, bringing along my infamous relish that I had only perfected the day before (although most of it had been soaking for a few days, so it was quite juicy with cranberries by that point). It was a murky day and poured rain constantly, meaning that the house was more crowded with Daniel’s various siblings, aunts, cousins, and other relatives than it would have been otherwise (they wanted to use the deck, but it never stopped raining and in fact became a bit of a lake).

When I first got there I helped with some of the food (well, tried to help, mostly I just watched and tried not to get in the way). Daniel had the task of cutting the massive ham, which you can sort of see here behind the blender.

His mom was frying potatoes and finishing the base for a pavlova, which is a delightful meringue cake thing which you cover with whipped cream and fruit and is unique to Australian Christmases. In total for dinner we had ham, turkey, chicken, shrimp (sort of on the barby, lol), potatoes, gravy, veggies, salad, and coleslaw, which was all very tasty and I even tried the ham after having watched the amount of effort that went into slicing it. Here’s the table before the food, where you can see the crackers/bon-bons (I’m not sure what the right term for them is).

I mostly chatted with Daniel and his siblings, who were nice and doing various interesting things (one of his brothers was working the night shifts at a hotel, and his sister was part of an emergency response team but also worked in an ice cream store, which made me jealous). Soon it was time for pudding, which was extremely exciting. From left to right there was jelly (jello, really), my relish (which no one ate, but that’s okay I enjoyed it later), pudding, cupcakes, trifle (which had a stronger dose of brandy in it than anyone expected), ice cream cake that Daniel’s brother had made but wasn’t entirely satisfied with the texture, pavlova (which was divine!), brownies, fruitcake, and custard and cream to be poured over it all. 

I admit I tried most of the dishes, I think I only skipped the jelly, cupcakes, and brownies, since they were all fairly normal, but they were all fantastic and I was very full for the rest of the day. The family opened presents and chatted some more, and I hung out in the back with Daniel and his siblings where it was less chaotic (I think they were slightly overwhelmed since it had been their turn to host that year). Eventually we went back to the city, and I asked Daniel if it had been a fairly typical Christmas, and he said that it had, except for the pouring rain (so much for the “Christmas in the Sun” that the cheesy song in the supermarket had foretold).

At some point we opened the bon-bons and enjoyed the bad jokes and silly plastic toys. I put on my hat and wore it most of the rest of the day, although it was plasticky so it didn’t look as nice as the original paper ones.

I visited Kayleigh and my old roommates at the hostel in the evening, swapping chocolates and watching a bit of Wallace and Gromit on television, which was kind of random (why weren’t they showing a Christmas movie?) but fun and then I collapsed on my bed after enjoying a bit of Love Actually (I managed to watch Santa Clause, A Christmas Carol, White Christmas, Elf, and a Charlie Brown Christmas as well throughout the season). A good holiday!