We were up on the Sunshine Coast for Christmas day so our ‘first’ Christmas was with my parents and sister at my parent’s place. I wasn’t dragging all our presents up with us, only to bring them home again, so we had planned another meal and celebration with Anto’s parents upon our return.
Anto and Mikl had arrived late Christmas Eve.They were greeted by a very excitable Astrid who was allowed to stay up until they had arrived. She had been beside herself all day but then by-passed her dad for a Mikl cuddle, much to Anto’s annoyance! Dad was back in favour pretty quickly though.
Once both children were safely in bed and we had a late dinner with roast turkey and ham for the meat eaters and we made sure the house was all ready for Christmas!
Both kids had been waking at ridiculous o’clock due to the sun being up so early, and Christmas morning was no different. Astrid had been moved to my parent’s room on a mattress on the floor as Mikl had taken over her sofa bed. That meant they had the joy of her early morning chatter and we got to sleep til 6 when she was allowed up and proceeded to wake up the entire household. Soren enjoyed his quieter morning without Astrid waking him up at 4.30am but had been napping on me in the bed for a few hours anyway. Still 6am was an improvement over most of the 4.30am starts!
Astrid is pretty good with presents and knew we were waiting until after breakfast to open them. Once her brother was fed it was time for Anto to make crepes for the non-infant members of the household. We enjoyed some yummy crepes looking out over the water on a pleasant morning.
Once we were all full of carbohydrate goodness it was time to get dressed and ready for the presents giving to begin!
Even though we were only opening presents from my parents and my sister there was still plenty to open! Astrid being the only child capable of ripping paper open, got to open pretty much all of them on everyones behalf……. it kept her amused for hours as she is very slow with the opening and likes to do it carefully. She was oh so helpful and did a great job assisting everyone! She scored lots of great stuff and was more than happy with her haul. I did consider the need for all the presents awaiting us at home!
After a good play with her presents, it was time for lunch. We had decided given it was a Queensland Christmas we would have salads and seafood for lunch, saving the hot roast for our second Christmas. On the menu was:
- Christmas coleslaw
- Roasted tomato, coriander and white bean salad
- Fennel, orange and quinoa salad
- Asparagus and Persian fetta salad
- Salt and pepper calamari
- Prawns with mango salsa
- BBQ salmon with lemon and herbs
- Roast ham and turkey
Despite Astrid claiming she doesn’t like Calamari, she was spotted shovelling it into her mouth. She also did well with the salmon and the prawns. Soren just had his milk…….. next year he will be old enough for the real food!
The meat eaters claimed the seafood was pretty good. I thought we did alright with the salad too. I was hanging out for dessert though. Still we needed a bit of a break before that could be contemplated.
I could have gone dessert straight away but I was the only one feeding a small child constantly. At this point the slightly bigger child was beside herself with tiredness. While everyone was lounging around drinking and relaxing she was having a tanty about needing a nap. This is what a tired 2.5 year old looks like!
- Mango and candied macadamia frozen bombe with lime-vanilla syrup
- My Nanna’s Christmas pudding
- Home made custard
No complaints from anyone! OK, maybe Soren, who was too young to try any 🙂
