Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Good Christmas

Have been a bit more than 5 days from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day... but I wanted to share with you how was my Christmas Eve.

Christmas in general is the celebration of renewal processes in the world... although Christmas is referred to the birth of Jesus Christ.
This year Santa was wondering if he really wanted to keep going around the world
after he saw a nice weather down under

I must say I am not a religious person... I find many abnormalities in Catholicism or Christianity plus I am bloke of science. I don’t want to start explaining myself... nor going to try explaining about planetary movements, day and night and why Christmas is best related to a periodic celestial event than to someone being born is that precise day.

Something that I found curious this Christmas was that I had more time to spend with Australians to share a bit of our traditions and understand how summer season (opposed to our cold winter) affects the celebration. It was interesting that Latin-American people celebrate the birth of Christ; which means we celebrate Christmas Eve and at midnight present exchange and family dinner, while Aussies (Saxons descendents really) celebrates ‘Christ has born’ day or Christmas Day.

We manage to draw a suspect detected in Sydney's north shore
surfing with a bunch of animals... (no Rudolf seen on the scene) 

In any case, it will be translated into the inclusion of more traditions into our own... celebrating the birth on of baby Jesus... With Santa wearing shorts and riding a surfboard with his huge bag full of presents.

Screw you Rudolf!!! Here it comes roo-dolf! 


Edit: Thanks to Snap for sharing the Six White Boomers.
Turns out I am not the only one thinking Santa stayed here on Christmas Day.

How did I celebrate this year?
Well... Christmas Eve was nice. We spend the entire day cooking, cleaning and shopping; getting ready for dinner, to receive friends at our home.

Our Christmas table looked like this:

Yup... We had to take every single plate we had.

Mixture of traditions... What do you think about it?

Jack-o the Snowman was the vigilante in our table.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the evening

Our Christmas dish looked like this:
Two slices of Christmas bread (turkey and ham)
Chicken Salad (we couldn't find Hen... and lots of Aussies looked at us in disapproval when we asked)
Roasted Pork
And last, but not least... the Hallaca! (yes, that Yellow filled stuff thingy... it taste 10 times better than it looks)

And I really don’t want to show our faces after such meal... but the good thing was baby Jesus came at midnight (Santa left him in our balcony to deliver the gift... you know... he is less bulky... and we needed someone agile to go in and out fast enough... I am not going to explain anymore) and the kids loved their presents.

Mine?

Well... I had a Tron: Evolution game (I love the Tron universe...), Kathy had an activity tracking system called My Personal Trainer for PS3... and we barely have touched it yet. But I guess one of the coolest was sharing the moment with such a good company.

Great game... Looks AWESOME in 3D
Intense and great fitting programs...

What was missing?
I missed my family lots... I wanted to have them all around, playing tricks on each other (common between us), hugging my dad and my mom. How knows... maybe next year?

Now and before you ask... those wrapped things in our dishes that look candy alike are Christmas Crackers (Edit, also known as 'bon bons'... Again, thanks to Snap. I really appreciate your comments!). The Christmas cracker is a cardboard tube wrapped with pretty paper which contains a surprise gift and is tradition in the countries of the commonwealth.

One... Two... and... Three!!!
The idea is to share a moment with someone around the table and pull it apart (like the chicken wishbone). Who gets the bigger part will have the gift inside.

If you want to know a bit more of the Christmas cracker, click here.

7 Comments:

Snap said...

Rod, you forgot to mention that it's too hot in Australia for Santa's reindeers...so he swaps them for six white boomers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FdVXca9hys ;)

The 'crackers'...are sometimes called 'bon bons'...I think because they look like a giant bon bon lolly!

Adriana C Lopez said...

Wow... what a nice post!! the table was beautiful and the crackers seem like a fun tradition =D
Of course the meal was like... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!
It is nice to see how Venezuelans are enoying the christmas time there, I have thought about that a lot... "hot christmas? weird!"
Big hug and merry christmas everyone there!!

Gaby said...

It seems you had a fantastic christmas... I'm really happy I got to read this post.

Have a happy new year's eve and a happy 2011.

Kisses and hugs

Rod said...

@Snap, Well Ta! Noted and updated! I really enjoy your comments :)

@monologo_bipolares, It is a bit wicked to have a hot Christmas... This one is our second and is quite fun to see people laying on the sand with their blankets having their Christmas meal. But I like it!

@G&J, Thank you for the good wishes... Did I clear any doubt in your mind about our Christmas?

Carlos said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Carlos said...

Hey mate. That was a nice description of your xmas eve and it seems you realy had fun that day.

Was very interesting to know about that thing called xmas crackers, I did not know that.

But well mate, merry xmas and happy new year.

Sincerely Lady Diana and Sir Charles.

God bless you.

Rod said...

Thanks Diana & Charles, hope you had a get time on these holidays.

Cheerios.

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