What a great day.

What a lovely Christmas! The boys were totally ecstatic with their presents. I can now reveal that the gifts I smuggled out of Australia, hid in a wardrobe for a week in Phuket and then smuggled back into Australia without the boys ever suspecting were 2 digital cameras and 2 Samsung K3s (like ipods but with a bigger screen and brighter colours.) Connor was so delighted with his camera. Since starting his photo blog he's been wishing and hoping for a new camera that was his and his alone. He had that thing glued to his face all day. Jack and Jordan couldn't believe their eyes when they saw their mp3s. They jumped straight onto the computer to download all their music onto them. What they didn't know is that I'd teed up with their Dad to buy them speakers, so they'll be set up beautifully (music wise, anyway). It's so lovely when Santa gets it right!

(Santa also forgot until a week before Christmas that he'd bought a sleeping bag for each of the boys back in June. He'd stored them at his Mum's place. So they each had a sleeping bag and a major present. Funny how it works ... most expensive Christmas ever, with the smallest and fewest presents ever.)

We went over to Mum and Dad's place for Christmas. My sister and her husband and girls were there as well. We had Christmas dinner outside under the weeping myrtle tree and it was just beautiful. The table was being used as a table tennis battlefield just 10 minutes before, but with a cloth and christmassy decorations you'd never know. It was just the right size for 5 adults and 6 kids to sit around comfortably in the sparkling sunshine and enjoy the meal and each other's company. My nieces were given a guitar and keyboard for Christmas, so we brought around Brennan's electric guitar and Jack's acoustic, and the kids spent hours just noodling around on the instruments, playing and singing. It could've sounded awful, but the four years of music lessons I'd made the kids do really paid off. They had a ball, and our ears didn't bleed. Got to be happy with that.


Just to prove beyond a doubt that it was a true Aussie Christmas.... here is a shot of the beach towels drying on the clothesline just to the side of where we had our lunch.
And we still have 4 weeks of holidays..... god I love this time of year!