I experienced my first Aussie Christmas this year and I loved it! It was definitley not white or cold, but I still got in the holiday spirit. I set up my own Christmas tree with a star on top, featuring Alex Vogt (my roommate of 4ish years), and did a lot of baking! Of course, I had to make white chocolate covered pretzels! Interesting fact, pretzel are not that popular in Australia and therefore hard to find.
I had my first visitor over the holidays, my boyfriend, Alex Jones. He arrived on Christmas Eve and stayed until January 2nd. He also brought with him a suitcase full of presents and goodies from my family (Thanks, Mom, Dad, and Ally). The night Alex got here, we went Christmas light looking with a big group of young adults from church. Putting up Christmas lights is becoming popular on the Central Coast, but it's still not very widespread. In most neighborhoods, there are only a few house that actually decorate at all. So, we drove all over town looking for the "good houses." We found a few, and even one with a Santa Clause outside!
We spent Christmas Day with 2 families from church. We started off with the Mowday family in the morning. It was a great day of presents, food, kids, toys, dessert, Christmas crackers, and watching “The Muppet Christmas Carol.” I even made my Aunt Mary Jo's famous chocolate-layer dessert to add to the spread at lunch! We ended the day with the Gritten family. We stopped by for supper and to chat, and ended up playing games for 2 hours!
The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, is considered a holiday in Australia as well. We spent Boxing Day with the Brown family. We had a nice meal, opened a few presents, and played Wii. The main event of evening was the Gingerbread Decorating contest. We put everyone’s name in a hat, and then every person drew out a name. You had a decorate a gingerbread to look like the person whose name you drew out of the hat. At the end, everyone had to guess who had which name based on what the gingerbread looked like.
Despite the differences in temperature and tradition, I still had an wonderful Christmas holiday because I was surrounded by friends and family who love me!
My beautiful Christmas tree, featuring Alex Vogt.
Taking our picture with Santa while Christmas Light looking on Christmas Eve.
Whole Mowday family at Christmas Day lunch. We are all wearing our paper crowns from our crackers.
My friend Laura van der Meulen (formerly Mowday) got to come home for the holidays. Laura came and stayed with me for a week or so in 2007 when she was visiting the States.
Getting ready to start the gingerbread decorating contest on Boxing Day!
My gingerbread version of Deb. 
Jenny, I enjoy reading your blog. We didn't get to see your mom during Christmas, but I did chat with her online before we left TN. It did snow in TX while we were there. Sounds like you are having a wonderful time.
ReplyDeleteI love the gingerbread activity! I also loved reading your other blogs about being a tourist and your drive-in experience. Did I tell you I saw Avatar... in Spanish... and fully understood it?!?! And what did you think of Sherlock Holmes? Annnnyyywwaaayyy, like always, I'm so proud of you and the work you are doing over in Australia. I'm always excited to share with my friends here in Mexico that I have a good friend serving the Lord over there. And the cool part is, the Lord is so much more proud of you than I ever could be! Keep doing good work! Miss ya!
ReplyDeleteGosh, I feel like any comment I write is going to be lame after Rachel's... I like the gingerbread activity too! I want to do that here sometime! I'll write you back soon!
ReplyDeleteYay for the updated blog!! I'm so jealous of your tan! And the fact that your in Australia. We've been praying for you and it sounds like you are doing great things there.
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