Christmas Day at Blueys Beach

I really think I could learn to get used to an Australian Christmas. We had the most lovely day, complete with an early church service, a personal visit from Father Christmas (Alice’s dad dresses up in the full Santa suit, despite the temperature, and most of the grandchildren still haven’t realised that it’s really him), fantastic food, and time on the beach complete with dolphin sightings from the balcony.

I thought that I wouldn’t be able to eat as much as usual (my jumper usually hides the expanding stomach), but somehow I managed it. The only difference is that I actually wanted to eat fruit rather than thinking I should eat an occasional orange to balance out the chocolate. Alice is from a family of eight, so there were a lot of people. Alice’s dad sat in the corner (apart from the Father Christmas moment) shaking his head and marvelling at quite how he managed to produce so many people. It was a family at Christmas, with all the usual family interactions and a lot of warmth - and we were made so welcome. We did miss home. It was really good to speak to our parents and Claire and Rob on the crackly phone line at the end of the day

However, I haven’t ever spent another Christmas Day playing in the sand or improving my boogie board technique, and I liked that.