Christmas Interlude

 It's weird celebrating Christmas when it's hot. I haven't gotten used to it, and I suppose, in some ways, it makes it easier. If I'm not sipping vin chaud in front of a roaring fire, smelling the day's efforts at gingerbread making, it's easier to forget that I'm missing doing those things with my family and friends back in Delco. That said, this was my third Christmas in Australia (!?!), I've got a lease on an apartment that means I'm planning to stay for at least a bit longer, and stability makes me think I should just suck it up and learn how to do Hot Christmas. So I made some attempts. 

Exhibit A: Decor 

Gaia secured us a (free!) Christmas tree from a work colleague who was moving house and didn't want a full-sized tree to deal with. (Side note: Have I mentioned that Gaia isn't working at the Pub anymore? She's working at IGA and loving it!) Tree in place, my job was to add lights. Ornaments we would figure out... until Gaia got inspired by the bin full of cans outside our front door and decided an Aussie theme would be just fine! Inspired in turn, I decided that we could really use a fireplace. A nice hearth, decorated with "holly" from... you guessed it... more cans! And flames provided by two more brands of beverages. Really, working at a pub makes it easy to get whatever color cans you need when feeling artistic inspiration. We never quite made it around to hanging our stockings by the chimney with care, but there's always next year.

Export cans were repurposed into ornaments for the tree

XXXX Gold & Great Northern cans provided the flames...

...while VB (Victoria Bitter) cans made for nice holly sprigs!

Exhibit B: Food

Anyone who knows the Moran Family knows about Christmas Gingerbread. Grandmom's recipe, passed along to Dad, passed along to... well, God help us, me I suppose? Unless Anj is gonna take up the ropes. Regardless, it's Dad's party now, and he does a smashing job of baking gingerbread for the entire Duffy/Moran clan and extended family friends every December. 

Back in October when my old housemate Sandra dropped off a mystery box from home that had been shipped to her PO box in town, I had a total meltdown in the office at work when I smelled the spices wafting out from within. I didn't have to open the box to smell the ginger, cloves, and nutmeg that were tucked so securely inside, and the lovely "happy baking" note that Australian Federal Police left in the box along with their drug-testing sample only made me smile a bit before I started blubbering again over Dad's note. It's funny how a little thing like familiar handwriting can make you ache for the people you love. Anyway, this little box of love was sent from Havertown and included all the ingredients I needed to make my own gingerbread (excepting the butter and eggs the Papa Bear didn't think would keep too well on the trans-continental journey). I managed to wait until December to bake, but man those tears were flowing again while I mixed ingredients and smelled the baking bread wafting through the house. And when I brought a loaf round the pub and shared with my bar pals - both co-workers and patrons - I felt like maybe Grandmom would have been happy to know that her cake continues to bring people together, even here on the far side of the planet.

"Ya want some gingerbread with that butter, Dub?"

Apparently USPS thought Dad was shipping banking supplies, not baking supplies. Thank goodness AusPost realized... and even returned the bit of sugar that they took for testing!

Cinnamon and Cloves: still not on the "snort list"

Exhibit C: Spend time with people you love

Around the middle of the month, Gaia and I hosted a bunch of the pub girls at our house for a dinner and Secret Santa before Sophie & Flo left town. Soph moved to Perth this month, to try spreading her wings a bit more, and Flo moved down south as well to be closer to her boyfriend. But before they left we had an amazing little party for just the girls and then a breakfast with the rest of the Potshot crew. Soph also had an amazing going away party complete with slip 'n slide that left me with bruised ribs and not enough sleep, but man was it ever fun!

Puppy's birthday is the 18th of December and she's come home to Exmouth for the holidays, so I got to spend part of the afternoon with her and Taig (her boyfriend) and some friends! Seeing her back around the pub and town and getting hugs has been so wonderful. 

Gaia and I have started a new Christmas tradition: the Christmas Dive! Our friend Frenchy (the one I went fishing with a couple months back) had a mate in town who wanted to dive the Navy Pier, so he asked if we wanted to tag along. I don't need much encouragement to get excited about diving the Pier, so away we went and had a BLAST.

Pre-dive

Post-dive... Gaia was trying to keep the flies off her face with the towel...

...and I should have done the same because they got in my mouth. 

On Christmas Day, Gaia and I went to Mass and had Jess around for breakfast. I had work at 11, which went so smoothly, and then headed off to Jess' for dinner. The couple she lives with, Andy and Martha, are her sister's in-laws. They're Scottish immigrants and they didn't want me to be left alone. Bless them. I made Pumpkin Pie and blew everyone's minds with it (Martha thinks it'd be best as a breakfast food, her friend thought it would be served nicely alongside salad). Possibly the best part of the night was the 6 week old puppy that joined in the festivities. 

Puppy Caesar

Gaia testing out the hammock that Santa brought us!

Wearing my "Moran Holiday Spirits" hat in front of the Golden Shower tree at work

Exhibit D: Soak up the Season

I went for a Christmas Lights Tour about town with Gaia and Rhys and loved seeing all the decorations around town. People don't get into it in the same numbers as at home, perhaps, but the ones who DO get into the season's decorations commit. 

Adam and Jules from the pub have a 3-story tree on the side of their house!

A few weeks back I woke up from an afternoon nap to the sound of Christmas Carols wafting into my living room. I popped on some shoes and wandered towards the sound only to find a massive concert going on at the park in the center of town. I meandered around, said hello to people I knew, and soaked up the sounds of the season. 

Snow (or any precipitation, for that matter) is so tied into the feeling of Christmas for me, but Exmouth rarely sees rain, let alone the more frozen varieties. So with a full moon coming a few days before Christmas, I was happy to head up to the lighthouse to watch it rise over the Gulf and imagine it was nature's way of ushering in the season.

Sunset at Vlamingh Head Lighthouse

A random guy snapped this photo of me on Tessie's roof and offered to send it to me afterwards

Moonrise over Lighthouse Bay

I'm still not sure whether I managed to fully embrace Hot Christmas after all that. But I think my efforts did make a difference. And when Feliz Navidad was the recessional hymn at church on Christmas morning, every single part of me could imagine being at home, dancing around the kitchen like a loon with my Dad, with Mom and Anj laughing and watching us. So maybe I got there in the end after all.