In a fit of excitement Gator Girl and I decided to host Christmas in our new swamp. Luckily we've got some family over here, so invited the Aggie & Longhorn elements of our family across for the weekend. This seemed like a great idea a few weeks out from Christmas when we'd received word our furniture had arrived in the port of New Orleans, and would be released from customs shortly. It didn't seem like such a good idea the weekend before Christmas when the government still hadn't released our shipment, and hence we were without any significant furniture! In the end it arrived 2 days before the weekend, just in time.......
Incidentally the US government charged us $42 for the pleasure of the time it took to inspect our shipment. Seems a little cheap, what did they do?
The few weeks before Christmas we'd had a steady stream of parcels arriving addressed to our puppy, which we proceeded to keep for ourselves. As a result, combined that with the large amount of stocking stuffer presents that the Texan side of the family brought, we had a huuuuge pile of things to open on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.
Add to that our Longhorn family brought their two dogs, as well as the Aggies bringing their dog, and it was a 4 dog present fest. The pic to the left is about as calm as it ever got with the four of them around......as soon as three of them got settled down the fourth would fire up and start pestering the others. It was very entertaining, even if the house smelt a bit doggy by the end.
Gator Girl was particularly excited by her present - she got a giant ~2kg tin of Milo! That's one of the comforts of Australia that's pretty much impossible to get over here. For some reason Tim Tams are everywhere, but Milo is still a difficult purchase. I promised Santa that I'd post a picture of her crying in happiness, so here it is.
I scored a very cool pair of baseball gloves and a baseball - looks like it's time for me to start a new sport! It's probably easier to find a baseball or softball team than a cricket team anyway.
And finally to the eating - we had a 26 pound (that's about 11 kilos or 4.88e-30 solar masses for those using more sensible units) turkey, roast lamb, stuffing, roast spuds & potatoes, pumpkin soup and a biryani that was provided by our Australian-Assyrian-Croatian ex-neighbours.*
For dessert we had plum pudding, lemon tart and an apricot pie made with much wailing and screaming by Gator Girl from an ancient family recipe that was obviously designed specifically to torment me.
Gator Girl would like everyone to note how impressive the table looks with the new chairs sitting around it. In fact, I'll add another shot of the undressed table just for full effect. This table is a handmade wedding present from some close friends of ours, and it just looks sensational! Thanks guys! We love our table!
Anyway, after dinner was finished we pretty much sat around watching movies and holding our over-stretched stomachs, before going back for leftovers a few hours later. What a great tradition.
Being the nice people that we are we didn't keep all the presents to ourselves. Here Lance shows off his Christmas gift to the camera. Moments after this shot was taken, his head spun around three times and he made a deep roaring sound. Don't know what that was about.
Merry Christmas all, and again a very big thank-you to those people who went to all the trouble of mailing us gifts - we really appreciate it.
* My father is sure to pick on me for writing that sentence...terrible use of brackets and commas (not that it's my strong point at the best, of times); along with confusing use of the accusative.
3 comments:
Glad to see the table made it in two pieces. I feel quite honoured being mentioned in such an illustrious publication as "GG&SB"
That dog is evil.
Ya want me to smuggle some Vegemite into the country when I come over, Swamp Boy? I can bring Milo as well.
poor Lance, even people across the planet think he's evil.
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