Christmas Day

George and Anna open their iPods

We had a lovely Christmas Day. The children succeeding in not getting up until 7am (hurrah - jetlag does have its uses after all) and were thrilled with all their presents. George and Anna were particularly pleased with the video iPods that Aunty Lucy and Uncle Mike had given them. I think the next favourite thing was probably Anna's Singstar for the Playstation, courtesy of Granny and Grandad. We will live to regret this, I'm sure, as we are now subjected to karaoke-ing 9 year olds every minute of the day.



Anna and George on the pool seesaw

Katy and Emily were excited to open Australian stockings, and all the children spent some time in the pool with all the wonderful inflatable toys Father Christmas had helpfully delivered. Even Daddy got in the pool with them, and when Ally, Lou, Pete, Sheila, Zoe and Samantha arrived, there were even more people in there!



You absolutely have to have a Crimbo water fight!



Hmmm

I have to say that in terms of preparation and cooking, it was probably the most relaxing Christmas I've had. I had ordered cooked lobsters and tiger prawns from the fishmonger, which we collected on Christmas Eve, and we had a seafood and cold meats and cheeses buffet table, plus a pavlova and Christmas Pudding. It was a lovely day, but I have to admit that it didn't feel like Christmas that much.



Christmas lunch Australian style - not a brussel sprout in sight!

We did have a very Australian Christmas story though - during the afternoon, we found a bandicoot in the tennis court. Bandicoots are a small marsupial, and this one appeared to be paralysed in its hind quarters. It also had a joey, which we later discovered to be dead. Andrew, Ally and Lucy had plenty of silly jokes about it all - 'it doesn't look like the bandicoot on 'Crash Bandicoot' - where is its little blue jumper?' - but I was really upset about it, especially given that it is an endangered species. In the end, after wrapping it in a towel and putting it in a box for safety, I phoned Taronga Zoo, who put me onto the Wildlife Rescue Service. Within an hour, a volunteer had arrived to collect the poor thing, and hopefully they will have been able to help her.






This did all delay Christmas lunch rather!

All the Watson clan caught the last bus back to the city at 10.40pm and the rest of us fell into bed!