Christmas day was fun...

So Christmas has come and gone for another year. Leaving us perhaps a little poorer in some areas of life, perhaps a little richer in others. We really had two Christmas' this year... one a week before with Nanna and Poppie Shay (aka John and Bev) and Mikaela, John and John, and then of course on Christmas day itself. Mikaela now sports an Aussie battler hat (which looks great on her!) Poppie John has a stunning walking cane, complete with rear view mirror, stubbie holder and bell to warn oncoming pedestrians... Cooktown lookout!

I personally had a great day this Christmas. And I think I can speak on behalf of the whole family and say that we all did. Perhaps we may even have begun a family tradition... That of waking and opening presents all sitting on Mum and Dad's bed! I managed to fill an entire pillowcase for Mez (mostly with gifts that were just simple things like chocolates and DVD's, but including also some nicer items too which she didn't seem to suspect. And Mez managed to get me a couple of really cool things too which was nice. Abbey had a small mountain of presents to get through, a few from us and loads from all over the globe. Lucy even did pretty well (for a first Christmas!) Thanks heaps to all the gift givers! Most of all though I really enjoyed watching the delight on the faces of my wife and daughter, as they expectantly tore into their gifts. There was something entirely simple and joyous about the whole morning that will stay with me (and i'm sure inspire more gift buying in the future!) I guess I felt proud of my family. Certainly I felt love for them (my three girls). But I also felt enamoured by them and drawn into their excitement and bewilderment. It was fun.

The rest of the day was also cool - we went around to Mikaela and John's and opened (and gave) some more presents, as well as making chocolate mousse for dessert, then went around to some friends of theirs (Michael and Melanie) who cooked an amazingly amazing roast chicken such as i've not tasted before to go with the vege's M & J had brought, and then after a nice cooling swim, we polished off some dessert too. Evening concluded with phone calls to family back home in NZ. A great day. (or couple of days!) A greater than great start to it though that definately goes down as one of the highlights of the year for me! Merry Christmas!