Happy Christmas!
I admit, I was a little bummed out leading up to Christmas. My family are 12,000 miles away and were all getting together to celebrate. It’s cold back home, so cold that it was snowing for a couple of weeks leading up to Christmas. The thought of a delicious, big, fat, turkey dinner with crispy and fluffy roast potatoes, pigs in blankets (sausages wrapped in bacon), stuffing and tonnes of yummy gravy was created major FOMO (fear of missing out)…
But here I am, in Australia, where it’s summer. It’s been over 25 degrees for most of the last month. It’s humid. It’s sunny. I’m a bit sunburnt here and there. But it’s all part of the experience!
Stunning Christmas trees and decorations around Sydney made everything seem a bit weird. I went through days where I was really excited and feeling Christmassy and other days, it didn’t seem like it should be Christmas. My poor brain couldn’t comprehend the switch in seasons and was very confused with it being summer and Christmas. Even my mum said it was weird seeing me next to a Christmas tree with a T-shirt on (it definitely felt funny). At work, we did Secret Santa (thank you to mine, really appreciate the presents!) and I’d picked up my parcel from my Mum and Sister from the post office. My Christmas cards were displayed in my bedroom. We'd been to a few Christmas markets, drank a few spiced ciders. I’d bought tonnes of food, enough to feed an army. I was ready for the strangest, unnatural Christmas I’d ever had.
On Christmas Eve, I finished work and raced home to get prepared for friends coming round. We are loads of cheese, biscuits, crisps, and loads more! We listened to music and chatted through the evening until the early hours of Christmas morning! Eventually, everyone left, and it was time to go to bed…
On Christmas morning, I woke up early to call home and open my presents over FaceTime. I got up and started getting stuff ready for a day at the beach and for later. The ham was in the slow cooker, the beach bag and food bag was packed ready to go down to Bondi Beach. Got into my swimming stuff, shorts, Christmas t-shirt and flip flops and left for the beach.
We got down the beach around 9:30am and it wasn’t as busy as we’d expected (yet), probably something to do with the grey skies. We nabbed a great spot in the centre of the beach, in front of Bondi Pavilion and in between the flags (practice safe swimming people!). We even saw them filming Bondi Rescue several times, here’s hoping we’ll be in the background of the Christmas 2022 episode! Friends gradually arrived at the beach and the beach itself got busier and busier. By 12pm, you could barely move! It was super hot, and we swam several times just to cool down. Christmas tunes were blasting around us, there were lots of people in red bikinis and swimming trunks and there was a sea of Santa hats around the beach.
I reckon there must have been around 40,000 people on the beach and as we left at 3:30pm, still more people were heading down for their Christmas swim. We head back home for showers and a huge feast of ham, cheeses, crisps, crackers, fruit, and lots more. We also played a game of 5 second rule (great game, highly recommend). So much fun had by all. Everyone left round 7/8pm and it was time for bed! I called home to wish them Merry Christmas again (by this time it was Christmas morning back home) and told them all about my Christmas. I have to say I had the best Christmas and I am so grateful for the wonderful friends I spent it with. ❤️
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Onto the New Year!
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