2008 Christmas of Excess. Part 1

My almost 18 year old nephew had some great idea that he'd make a helmet out of a watermelon, mix it up with some long socks and bad shorts and parade around like that all day.



christmas morning in the tent



The heavily laden tree



Dog city




I must say it is nice to be home and by that all I mean is it's nice to be able to sleep in my own bed. I could quite easily still be relaxing out in the wide open spaces.

Christmas 2008 was such a busy time. We headed north on the Monday before Christmas to sent up camp in my sister's gargantuan backyard. We wanted to get settled so we could head slightly south again on Tuesday to meet with some old friends I hadn't seen in years. That was a surprise meeting and it was an absolutely wonderful day. My friend and her husband recently had twin girls after 15 years of trying. They were well worth the wait and quite possibly have the calmest parents around. My friends, who I hadn't seen in years, were visiting her parents at their home for Christmas. My friend normally lives in northern NSW on an organic vegetable farm without running water or a functioning toilet or even electricity. They are doing precisely what they have always wanted to do - to live self-reliantly. They get power from the sun and a generator, they eat from their garden, they have very few modern day luxuries. They have no phone and therefore no internet although they said they were planning on buying a laptop because it's become increasingly difficult to communicate with banks etc without access to the world wide web. I have to admit in some ways I am very envious of them. Not necessarily because they are living withouth a flushing toilet, but because they've pursued their dreams and they made it happen. They are right where they've always wanted to be and they are healthly, both mentally and physically.

Christmas Eve was a whirlwind of cleaning and organising in preparation for the arrival of the masses. Henry slept contentendly that night in the tent with his santa sack beside him. When he woke in the morning he looked around almost forgetting what day it was. Half asleep he spotted his santa sack and pulled everything out while muttering occasionally until he got to the Transformer. He would have been happy if that had been all he got.

Christmas Day saw us drinking champagne at 8AM and eating ham and eggs for breakfast. We had to wait for some of the other family members to arrive before opening all the gifts under the tree...

Part 2 to come.