Christmas .!!!

Here  in Australia, at least in our home we have very relaxed casual Christmas celebrations.
We both grew up in the country and our families  have celebrated Christmas in similar fashion, so it has been only natural to continue  the few traditions that we had  as children.
We both came from families that didn't have a lot and we were discussing the fact that my husband said that he had never had a photograph as a child with Santa(He was from a family of  11 children, living in the bush with hard working poor parents.) I likewise came from a fairly low income country  family of 5 children and I have in my possession only 1 photograph of myself and Santa.

This is me above, when I was about 5 years old on a  trip to Sydney to pick up my brother from school(my brother is deaf and had to attend a special school about 6 hours from our home).
These photos were just a luxury that  my parents   couldn't afford on a regular basis.
As we have had our own children,we came to realise the expense, some years we had photographs done , but mostly  we didn't.
My daughters now insist on having their daughters photographed with Santa for future record.

These are our two beautiful grand daughters, the older one is really nervous of Santa, so he had to trick her a little and hide behind the chair and then just pop up for a photo.
When my children were young and we  visited their grandmother

for Christmas we would  go up to the small pine forest on the property and cut ourselves a tree, this was always a big adventure.
Now days, living on the coast, most of the time we have an artificial tree ,hopefully once we move to the farm full time next year , once again we will  return to having a lovely real tree.
Christmas here is very casual, up early, open gifts, bacon and eggs for breakfast , and then getting ready for our wonderful lunch, some times eaten outside  in a shady area if cool enough, but  usually eaten inside with the air conditioner blasting away  to try and cool us all down.he pic directly  below is  my Mum and I seated with my sister in law behind.

Sometimes we stick with tradition and have a hot meal with all the trimmings, but mostly in our house hold we prepare the day before and have cold meats, seafood and salads.

This year, we  went with the cold option, and were blessed with lovely cool weather and misty rain, so we took the outside option, and set  up our tables and chairs and welcomed 18 lovely people for Christmas lunch and had a wonderful day.The photo below is myself, Nanny Jane and Grandma  Jane. Grandma Jane is my daughters' mother in law . Their whole family joined us for lunch this year.Grandma Janes' sister Rachael gave us these cute aprons to wear. Our shared grand daughter's name is Holly.

After lunch here on the coast we tend to just sit around, rest ,relax and  chat, but out in the country we usually go swimming, or cray fishing or other cool down types of activities as we are usually in 30-40 degree C heat.Last week here we had 40 + temps so we purchased a small wading pool for our grand daughter to cool down in. She  and her pop had a lovely time.

Last year out at the farm we found a lovely spot near  a dam and all had a lovely relaxed afternoon.

We even caught this haul of crayfish  as a bonus.
Other years we have spent Christmas with  our daughters who have  a pools, which made for  a very relaxed Christmas.

The table above was set for a very relaxed ,Christmas breakfast out on my daughters back verandah.
The highlight of this year was watching our 3 year old grand daughter open  her gifts. One of her most favourite things that she received was a book called"We are going on a croc hunt", she just loved it.
Also her Uncle had flown across from Perth WA and her brought her a "Peppa Pig',which she loved.

I hope and pray that  everyone has had a wonderful Christmas. we have for sure.
This will  most likely be our last Christmas  at this house , which is a little sad,this is where we have mostly raised our brood and it will be a little difficult to let go. But move on we must and look forward to what the future brings.
I wish everyone a  belated Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2014.
We are heading to the farm this week  and will do my next post from there. We have received little or no rain and the place is looking fairly forlorn. I will take some photos and show you all how dry it is.
Take care every one,
Until we meet agin,
Cheers,
Jane.