Orphan Christmas

A traditional Christmas for us back in states would include one family meal after another, and maybe another one with some friends. Last year we spent the holiday in Chiang Mai having a touristy Christmas. 

This year we had our first true Aussie Christmas. We started Christmas Eve festivities by visiting the beginning of a 12 Pubs of Christmas crawl, an Irish tradition. We met up with our Irish frisbee friend and Aussie his cousins and had a drink with them. We weren't even going to try to keep up, so we then went to Coogee Beach to have a beach BBQ with Michael's coworker and some of his friends. It was lovely and relaxing during sunset until I simultaneously got a bad headache and something I ate didn't agree with me, so we called it a night early. 

Sleep cures all ills and there was much facetiming with family, watching some movies, and opening gifts on Christmas morning. Michael had already received his big Christmas gift (a new GoPro, after the old one got partially broken a few weeks ago), but he also received a GoPro filter and some other stocking stuffers. His favorite gift, however, was Zen Magnets, from a friend. He literally played with them all day long, as we watched movies and as we were hanging out with friends. I got a patterned Modcloth dress and some fun Nikes. 

For all the latter half of the day, we celebrated "Friendsmaskuh" at our friend, Alanna's house. She had already celebrated an early holiday with her parents and chose not to travel with them to see extended family, so she hosted a few of us where she was house-sitting. Three other frisbee friends joined us, as well as Alfie the dog. Alfie is a resident at the group house two of our friends used to live at, and since all the current house residents had Christmas plans, we took Alfie so he could also enjoy some holiday festivities. He was a pretty adorable addition to the bunch, running around on his stubby little legs and doing tricks for food scraps. The weather was gorgeous - perhaps in the 70's all day. The house had a lovely back patio where we ate and spent most of the day, some grass Alfie could run around on, and even a chicken coop and nice vegetable and herb garden. There was some kind of minor oven disaster that made the chicken take four hours to cook, but luckily we had brought ample cheese and crackers to tide us over while we played some low-key party games. 

It has been a fun few days, and the relaxation continues with Boxing Day festivities. Ordinarily Boxing Day is the day after Christmas, but since that's a Saturday this year, it's celebrated on Monday, so it's kind of Boxing Long Weekend. Happy Boxing Long Weekend, everybody!