So, this is christmas
Trip Start
Sep 16, 2011
1
74
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Trip End
Nov 20, 2011
Southport, Queensland, Australia
Sunday, December 25, 2011
He gets stuck straight in and is delighted with his gifts. He receives; animal figures, mr men books, bucket and spade, swimming goggles a towel, chocolates, biscuits and the big winner, evil dr pork chop from Toy Story. Woody seems well this morning, but he is not interested in eating the chocolates or biscuits from his stocking – so something is not right. We don’t really pay much attention to the presents under the tree, so Woody does not pay much attention to them either.
Noah has cereal for breakfast, I have bacon and eggs and Woody has some of everything. Maybe he is not really sick? We have a great brekkie and lovely chat with Dave and Tracey and then we are on our way to the beach.
We pack all the essentials: Malibu, pineapple juice, lamingtons, croissants and fruit salad and head to the beach for our 2nd breakfast (3rd for elwood). Elwood has a few Christmas sweets for the journey to tide him over.
We get to the beach, and it is closed. The water is so rough, there is no swimming allowed. It looks crazy in the water, so we are happy enough to sit on the beach of play, and munch our snacks. We are there for ages, and love every moment. We build Elwood his sand/snow man and Elwood generally just jumps off high stuff into the sand. This makes him happy.
We then head to the park which is a giant sandcastle and Elwood happily runs around. Noah and I take in the surroundings, families playing cricket, bbqing, and just playing in the sun. We are so, so glad to be in Australia, especially for Christmas.
Woody attempts to climb up something dangerous and a man tells him he is too little and it is too dangerous. Which it is. Elwood tells the man he will be bigger one day. And the man says he can do silly things when he is bigger. Elwood retorts defiantly, ‘I do silly things now!’. Love it.
It is hot, hot, hot so we need to get ourselves into the water. We go to the rockpools for a splash, which open the moment we arrive – as if by magic. Elwood has a quick yoghurt, because he does like a snack. He mentions his sore ear in passing, but not again. He swims and splashes and generally is the happiest boy on earth. Noah and I cannot believe our luck that we are here and doing this and that this is out actual life (not a holiday). We are thrilled.
When it is getting too hot to handle, we decide to head home. Woody has been so happy but he starts complaining about his ear again. We decide to go to a pharmacy to pick up some eardrops, just in case it gets worse, and to give us some piece of mind. The pharmacy suggested he needs to see a doctor, so off we go to the after hours doctors. There is one up the street and they are brilliant. We wait about 10 minutes, they bulk bill, and friendly and efficient. We see a lovely doctor who tells us Woody has an infection in both ears, fondly referred to as ‘swimmers ear’. Woody bonds with the doctor by telling him, quite seriously, about the medical kit he has at home. Woody does think that by virtue of owning this medical kit, he is actually a doctor. We buy the Rolls Royce of ears drops which the doctors say we will see an improvement in about an hour. And we do. Phew.
So back at home, the fellas sit / doze on the sofa and I rustle up Christmas lunch, which basically involves opening a lot of packets, with flair. Now, normally I am a scratch cook, and would cook a feast and enjoy the cooking and eating. But it is too hot to cook or eat, and honestly, we cannot be bothered. So I whip together a spectacular antipasto platter, and that is it, ‘christmas dinner is served’. It is exactly what we fancied and we all enjoy every mouthful.
We enlighten Woody to the fact that the presents under the tree are also for us to open. He is again, stoked. So we get stuck into that . Noah gets a wooden robot lovingly made by me and Woody, some new thongs, wallet, hat and a terrific t-shirt from the mothership. I get membership to a Surf Club, surfing lessons and a necklace. Super, super happy about fab presents and cannot wait to learn to surf.. Woody gets a comedy book on manners, face paints, lion fancy dress, a lion craft project (which he says is awesome), more books, mr tickle, and gruffolo pj’s. He also gets Hungry Hungry Hippo which we have to stop everything for and play immediately. Elwood loves it, but not as much as Noah loves it.
We then it a chocolate log cake as our Christmas cake- straight from a packet. My domestic goddess halo is now around my neck and I could frankly, not care less. It feels fab to not be going to any effort and just relaxing, and eating random stuff from packets.
We do the lion craft project with Woody, which makes the house smell of burning plastic but it is a success, of sorts. We then make Woody a robot costume out of a cardboard box, which he is thrilled with.
He has a cheese sandwich for dinner, a bath and then he is ready for bed. Except for the fact we skype the Mothership and he gets so excited I think his head might explode. And, it turns out, even with all the presents he has received, he is only really interested in the electric toothbrush. He shows everyone when we skype and it is pretty much all he can talk about. I caught him attempting to brush his hair with it and Noah informs me that at least half a dozen of his toys have had their teeth brushed this evening. Nice. He likes to keep his toothbrush running all the time, in case he has to quickly brush something. It’s quite annoying really. Woody dresses up in costumes for Grandma and runs around like crazy. Sleep seems quite a remote possibility at this point.
I catch Elwood trying to sneak eat a load of biscuits, and stop him, and that’s it – folks, we have 3 year old melt down on our hands. Noah and I both knew it was coming, impossible to avoid on days like this, but we were trying to get him to bed before the crash. We failed. He is a crazy kid for 10 minutes, loses interest / or energy in his tantrum and we sit and read, and calm is restored. He is asleep in a heartbeat.
Noah and I Skype with Josh, Laoidhe, Esie and Elliot and it is brilliant. We enjoy every second of the call, and love, love, love being entertained by the kids. We feel a bit melancholy when the call ends.
We decide the skip dinner and eat a load of peanuts instead. Even whilst I am eating them I know this is a bad move – as peanuts can wreak havoc on the stomach the day after consumption. So, it should be fun times at the beach tomorrow.
We laugh in the face of Christmas movies and watch ‘Attack of the 50 ft woman’. I was going to say it was really good, but it wasn’t, but we enjoyed it anyway. My favourite scenes where you can just see a giant hand and it is clearly badly done paper mache. Anyway, the big girl gets her revenge and manages to do it whilst wearing a nice swimsuit – so that is good.
So that is all from us. We are just winding up and then we are going to bed before we eat anymore peanuts.
We have had such a wonderful, low key day. We kept it so simple and somehow this has made it feel so much more special than we had expected. Bliss.
Merry Christmas to all our wonderful friends and family. You have been in our thoughts today and we hope you all have had the Christmas of your dreams, as we have. Good night. x
