A Celebration with friends
I don’t know what your feelings about Christmas are, but in my family, certainly back in 2012, we generally celebrated Christmas close to home, and my grandmother had always hosted a family gathering on Christmas eve, as alluded to in the previous post.
Our very kind friends, and their family, had allowed us to be part of their Christmas celebration, but what would an Australian Christmas Day be like – would there really be prawns on the barbie?
Well, in answer to that question – it wasn’t quite barbeque weather, but there were some excellent prawns served, along with a traditional (to us at least) turkey dinner. As well as a ham, lots of lovely wine, good company, gifts and games. So all in all a great time was had by all, and a lot of food and drink was shared. Plus there were name-cards on the table (always a mark of an excellent meal), and some lovely dogs to keep us all company!
Boxing Day – The MCG
On Boxing Day, it was time for me to fulfil one of my lifetime ambitions, to watch the first day of the traditional Boxing Day test match at the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground – the MCG. Sadly, it wasn’t an Ashes year, but Sri Lanka were the visitors, for an interesting first day, where we got to see both teams bat, and Australia ended the day only 6 runs behind on first innings with 7 wickets in hand.
Tiff and Michael had kindly gifted us the tickets, but some clear cultural differences emerged between us – Mrs T, not being a major cricket fan, just went with the flow. Meanwhile, I’d set my stall out to remain in my seat for every ball of the day’s play, so I didn’t miss anything. Our Australian comrades, however, had very much planned to spend a lot of the day in the bars, watching the game on screens there and more “soaking” up the atmosphere. I didn’t see much of them, although they must have brought some drinks back at various points as I don’t remember going thirsty.
After the end of the Day’s play, we were invited back to have some more drinks on the rather lovely balcony of some of Tiff and Michael’s friends.
