Merry Christmas from Sydney!

I wasn't fully sure what to expect for our first Christmas Down Under. I anticipated a few things: sunny weather, good food, lots of skyping, and maybe a little homesickness. We had all of that but sunny weather! On the unanticipated side, I think we may have added a few new traditions to our usual Christmas plans!

We kicked off Christmas on Christmas Eve when I got home from work. Christmas Eve isn't a holiday here, but the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, is. So I got home from a hot office (the air con was broken) on an 85-degree day ready to party!

Toby happily made us a lasagna casserole for dinner.

And it turned out delicious!

While he prepped our dinner, I got our Christmas campout ready. This is one of our standings traditions where we camp out in the living room on Christmas Eve and watch Christmas movies all night.

This year we only had to move the mattress about 10 feet to get it into campout position, but we were not deterred!

We had a lovely night of watching our classic Christmas movies (like Elf!). There were good intentions of going to the midnight carol-sing at a nearby church, but rain and sleep dissuaded us.

On Christmas morning, I got up and put together a coffee cake, and we opened gifts while it baked. Our families were wonderfully generous to us and made sure we had plenty of fun things to open.

Santa knew that Toby wanted U.S. Cheetos for Christmas!

A cool photo mobile, complete with prints to hang on it from my wonderful BIL & SIL!

Toby also scored some Mac & cheese

Christmas PJs from my MIL!

A weird sci-fi show from my parents

Photo books of Australia from my lovely cousin Megan

Toby, ever the willing tourist, recognized some places we've been and is pleased

We also got some ornaments, which I think added some legitimacy to our tree.

A bottle of smuggled Buffalo Trace and Toby's happiness is complete!

After breakfast, we did some crackers. I bought some at the store a few weeks ago as part of my effort to give us an authentic Australian Christmas. It was my first time ever doing them and I loved it! It's getting added to the Toby & Christine Christmas traditions! I hadn't even realized that these were still a "thing" - I kind of thought it was an old English tradition that had died out. I'm so glad that's not the case!

We both got cute little jokes, a toy, and a paper crown.

Modeling our cracker crowns AND new PJs!

The best part of our day was getting to see some family & friends for a few minutes on Skype.

And the rest of the day went something like this: watch Harry Potter, nap, eat a snack, and repeat. The weather was abysmal - it rained all day, which totally ruined my plans of going to the beach for a "real" Aussie Christmas. (Toby seemed alright with the revised plan though!) It was OK though, because our cozy apartment Christmas was lovely in its own way.

We closed out the day with some Mac & Cheese from Santa.

Mmmm... Processed cheese from America!

I also had bought some Christmas desserts from the store. Australian Christmases are noticeably English (like with the crackers), especially the desserts. Christmas puddings and mince meat pies flooded the stores in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I haven't had either of these before, so I thought we should try both.

I completely hated both of these (Toby liked the mince pies). I don't think we're missing anything by leaving these of our American Christmas menus. =) But it was a fun way to close out our Australian Christmas!

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