It's an Aussie Christmas!

We were very thankful to be taken in as “Christmas Orphans” at a Christmas lunch in North Sydney this year.  Fellow expats from Sean's work invited us to join in the party.  It was supposed to be an outside affair at Milson’s Point Park in Kirribilli.  They had a nice tent set up and their friends that live there were making a turkey.  But mother nature had decided that today was the day that it would really rain in Sydney.   

It’s been very windy almost every day I’ve been here but it’s only really rained a couple of times and that usually meant a little shower here and there.  This was a full on downpour.  So, one of the ladies said, “let’s go to my mum’s house”.  So, with food and people in tow we made a car caravan to the North Sydney suburbs.  Imagine more than 30 people just showing up for a Christmas lunch you have no idea about (they have lunch here not dinner) and you saying, “Sure, we’ll just put some tables together. Come on in!”   But once again, Aussies are unbelievably laid back and very nice.  

Merry Aussie Christmas!

We had two huge plates of the traditional Aussie Christmas prawns.  As well as one of our newest, favorite seafood items, Balmain Bugs.  Sean had ordered some before when we went to a great little seafood place in Darlinghurst called, Fish Face.  We saw them swimming in the tank and knew we had to order whatever “those things” were.  They are kind of a mix of a crab and a lobster.  Very tasty!

Balmain Bugs in the tank at Fish Face

Cooked Balmain Bugs at Fish Face

Balmain Bugs on the barbie

Balmain bugs finished product

Christmas prawns

Pavlova

We also had two turkeys, a ham, carrots, brussel sprouts, green beans, potato salad, scalloped potatoes, gravy and candied figs, a chocolate-based pear dish, and pavlova for dessert.  Yum. We also enjoyed meeting people from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, England, and of course, the good ol’ USA.  Truly a world Christmas!  I must say that we need to add the tradition of everyone getting "crackers" to our American celebrations. For those of you that don't know what there are they are a kind of popper that you and another person hold and pull apart.  Whoever is holding the larger piece gets the stuff inside.  People wearing funny crowns and telling horrible jokes is a great addition to any Christmas!

The gang's all here with crackers!

Almost everything is closed for Christmas Day.  They leave the sales, movie premiers, cricket matches, and basically everything else special for Boxing Day.  According to Wikipedia, Boxing Day is traditionally the day following Christmas Day, when servents and tradesmen would receive gifts from their superiors or employers, known as a "Christmas Box".   It's celebrated everywhere in the Commonwealth of Nations. 

Our Christmas eve beach...Maroubra

We went to see Les Miserables.  Tickets were $20 each but concessions were the same price as America, hmmmm?  They also have you pick an assigned seat.  I really liked this feature.  It allows you to reserve your spot so you don’t have to worry about getting to the theatre early to catch the “20”.  We entered into a quiet, clean theatre with no advertisements playing.  It was nice.  About four previews later and we are into the movie.  Very nice. Then after the movie is finished credits start rolling and nobody moves.  I’m going to have to do more research on this phenomena but I think Aussies respect the credits a lot more than us Americans.  In America, you can watch a program on TV and the credits go by so fast and usually in the upper corner of the screen you can’t recognize anything let alone a name.   In Australia, I can sit and read every name of all the people that worked on the Love Boat in 1981.  Kinda cool.

Anyway, the Aussies crushed Sri Lanka on the first day of the Boxing Day test match so that’s what I did for the rest of the day.  I’m really starting to like cricket.  And that fact is really starting to scare me.