“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” is the song I heard when I answered my phone when it rang at 3:00 a.m. Christmas morning! The Freeman’s wanted to be the first to say Merry Christmas and we got a song at the same time. J We were a little disoriented with being in a new place and I wasn’t expecting a call from the US, but it was a very nice surprise!
We decided to spend the night at our new apartment for the first time on Christmas Eve since our mattress, bed, and couch had been delivered. We went to the grocery store to get things we would need for the next several days. Many restaurants, cafes, and several stores close down from before Christmas to anywhere from January 5-14. Without a fridge at our new place we had to be creative! I pretended we were going to be camping. J
With this being our first Christmas as a married couple we decided to start some traditions. So first we bought things for Luke to make omelets for breakfast on Christmas morning. We wanted to have a traditional Aussie Christmas dinner so we bought prawns (shrimp) and fresh fruit and veggies. We opted for the prawns that were ready to eat instead of doing our own peeling with the full ones with their eyes still on! We were trying to make things as easy as possible. So we went to our temporary apartment and I cut up all of the things we needed for the next day, made a pasta salad, and got everything ready for Christmas dinner. We filled our cooler with only our breakfast items and headed back to the new apartment. We had a full taxi with all of our food, more things to move over, and the Christmas tree. Yep, we took the Christmas tree over to the new place in a taxi!! I left on the lights but had to take off all the ornaments but luckily it didn't take as long to redecorate once we got to our new place.
Luke surprised me with a big, beautiful bouquet of flowers to brighten up our new apartment. This was great but we discovered that we hadn’t packed a vase. I decided that I would just use my cracked Pampered Chef pitcher (one of the few things that didn't quite make it safely!) and stick it in a bowl…see picture below…it did the job! We are making do with what we have for sure!
I received two special packages in the mail the day before Christmas Eve. One was a DVD that my cousin had made of my mom’s side of our family. The video included great songs and old pictures of my grandparents throughout their lives and each of my mom’s siblings and their families. My mom is the youngest of 8 children. It is amazing to see how much our family has grown with over 100 people and I really love that. The video was very special and it was so thoughtful that she mailed me my own copy to have before Christmas. I loved that at the beginning she used the quote, “All because two people fell in love.” So true!
The second special package was from a group of my good friends who had a cookie and ornament exchange for Luke and me. My eyes filled with tears as I opened each ornament and read my cards. The cookies even still tasted great after the long delivery!!! It really meant a lot to us and was such a thoughtful and special memory for us to have. The new ornaments really made our tree perfect. I think I will be leaving the tree up a little longer than usual, too, just so I can look at all of them!
A couple of weeks ago we found a very neat Christmas display called “Six White Boomers” which included a koala Santa on a sleigh with a little joey in a boot. Then there are 6 kangaroos with Santa hats as the reindeer pulling the sleigh. We decided we had to buy it to have for a fun memory of our Australian Christmas. I’ve included the picture below. Each piece was hand made out of pine cones!! I really don’t want to pack it away yet. It was believed that it is too hot for reindeer in Australia so Santa uses the “Six White Boomers” instead. There’s even a song…by Rolf Harris and John D. Brown and the chorus goes, “Six white boomers, snow white boomers, Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun. Six white boomers, snow white boomers, On his Aus-tra-lian run!” If you heard the words to the song, you’d really enjoy it!
That night we watched “Miracle on 34th Street” on the computer because we don’t have our TV yet. Our new couch is so comfy that neither of us made it very long before we fell asleep. When we woke up on Christmas morning we had breakfast and video chatted with Luke’s family. We are using our new coffee table as a kitchen table until we get one so you will notice us sitting on the floor using the whole space.
The weather was warm and beautiful so we decided to do one of Sydney’s best known coastal walks from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. It is a path that goes along the clifftops and beaches all the way to Coogee and is about 6km. We took the train to Bondi and couldn’t believe how many people were heading to the beach, too! (see pictures below!) You would not have imagined this was Christmas Day except everyone was wearing Santa Hats, red swimsuits, and had their coolers full for a barbie or picnic! So much for a quiet and relaxing day at the beach…I guess that’s what everyone decided to do. They definitely celebrate Christmas in a much different way than we do in the US. We enjoyed the views and the people-watching the whole walk as we passed by different beaches. Once we got to Coogee we found a great spot on the beach to relax after a quick swim to cool off AND the water was NOT warm so we cooled off very quickly!!!! J In the pictures you will see various beaches and also a couple of the natural saltwater pools they refer to as “rock baths” that are an alternative to swimming in the ocean in an actual pool.
When we came back we ran by the temporary apartment to get our Christmas dinner from the fridge and filled up our cooler once again to go back to the new place. We had simple appetizers and a delicious dinner and celebrated our first Christmas with a bottle of champagne. We’ve discovered that people drink champagne here for ALL occasions so we thought we should practice, too.
Luke and I really decided not to exchange actual gifts this year…we made a lot of purchases with our new furniture and we’re going to the Jimmy Buffett concert at the Opera House in January so we decided we didn’t really have specific things we needed to buy and wrap up for each other. As we sat silently on the couch that night I got an overwhelming and true feeling of Christmas that didn’t include exchanging lots of gifts but instead included being with someone I love and putting into words how we felt that night is very difficult...I wouldn’t have traded that moment for anything!
Our Boxing Day blog will be next…
Christmas dinner appetizers
My beautiful flowers in a broken plastic pitcher held up in a glass bowl!
"Six White Boomers" and comfy, new couch
"Miracle on 34th Street" on a DVD on the computer
Our tree! The big, bright ornaments are from my friends. :)
New Christmas tradition -Luke making our omelet breakfast 
Brekky is served!
Bondi Beach
Bondi Icebergs Pool
Beach Hike
Another pool
A beautiful day!
Coogee Beach where we relaxed the rest of the day
Getting some sun finally
Merry Christmas!
Christmas dinner
Our First Christmas
Looks like you are doing a superb job of jumping right into Aussie life. Love it! And I admit I laughed at the beach photo because from the angle it looks "clothing optional" - LOL!
ReplyDeleteOh man! I was afraid it was going to seem like that! That's what I get for not having straps on my suit. ;)
ReplyDelete