Christmas morning we all slept in a bit, owing to the festivities at the pub the previous night. About nine am we were having coffee and opening presents. Steve and Brenda seemed to like the sake cups we got them, they gave us an alpaca blanket, a Maori box, some soaps and bath salts, and a nice bottle of wine (that we got into later in Bangkok). It was really fun to see their Christmas traditions, too.
After cleaning up a bit we had morning Bloody Marys, complete with the big stalk of celery, and then got to work on a seafood lunch. I helped Tim shuck oysters to eat raw (they were tiny but delicious). I could tell that Tim has shucked an oyster or two in his life, while I just tried to keep from stabbing myself in the hand. One oyster turned out to be bad, and it smelled up an entire side of their home – nasty! Luckily we could air things out and it was OK to proceed. I grilled a few oysters (which was new to them) but only about half the oysters opened up, which was a little strange. We ate bugs, the strange, alien-like seafood that taste like lobster but looks like science fiction.
We ate outside on the patio, surrounded by “the bush” – the outback of Australia. Every now and then the Kookaburra birds would laugh in the distance, reminded me of the sound effects of the Jungle Cruise from Disneyland. They had wild parrots visiting the yard as well – it was so cool to see so much color in the trees around their home. Steve had cleared some trees around their house leaving them with an ocean view off in the distance – it was a spectacular place to sit and contemplate while sipping a cold beer.
After everyone had gotten in a nap it was time to get back down to eating. It was quite a feast – a stuffed turkey, ham, candied yams, potatoes roasted in duck fat, and a delicious stuffing (with sausage). We pulled on poppers with dinner, and wore the silly hats that were included inside. This Christmas tradition was new to me, but that’s what makes it fun.
We also played a game after dinner called True/False, where someone will read either a true or false fact off of a card, and the next person has to decide if it is true or not. It was fun to play, and became a talking point at various times during the rest of our stay. There were also some funny coasters with faces that you hung from your nose – making each person completely different from what you’d expect to see. Hard to explain but fun at parties!
In the evening we went over to Mary and Barry’s house, a neighbor down the street, for more food and drink. While we were in Australia at each person’s house they had put out prawns – boiled and easy to peel, and you scooped them up with your hand peeled them and ate them like popcorn. We had more prawns, sausages, Brenda’s pavlava dessert, and lots of wine. Kuniko got a little carried away with drinking and everyone was impressed how much more talkative she became. It was a fun night.
We went back to Steve and Brenda’s with them, leaving the young ones to party at Mary and Barry’s place. It was a great Christmas day – but we needed to recover some sleep and give our stomachs (and livers) a rest.
