Around here - Christmas Day

We had a lovely Christmas Day and we stick with the usual traditions.  We all gather at Mum's place to open presents and we now do the $50 gift as one present from the whole family instead of buying a gift for everyone.  Mum bought us all a box of Belgium Chocolates which she said her own Mother used to do so she started a new tradition this year.

We [my 2 Brisbane sisters and I] bring Christmas Slices and we enjoy that while doing the gift opening and we hang around until 11.30 am or so when everyone goes home and gathers their lunch items and then we come back to our place for lunch.  My Mum and sister bring the ham and prawns, I do the Asian Noodle Salad, the Pasta Salad, bread rolls and have the table set and provide the venue.  My other sister makes individual chocolate plum puddings and custard and my Mum and sister make the family Christmas Cake which cooks for 6 hours in the oven.  As we are so full on Christmas Day we can never bring ourselves to cut the Christmas Cake so we save that for the New Year.  My Aunty always makes a biscuit Christmas Tree which we love too.

It was a lovely cool Christmas for a change with early drizzle of rain around 11.00 am.  Normally by the afternoon we are in the backyard with the ping pong table and bocce however the grass was still damp and wet so we gave that a miss this year and instead the kids and cousins played card games inside and had a great time laughing and having fun.  It was another great Christmas Day.