It all started when I asked James' Mum if I could do anything to help. She asked me to get the crackers from the table inside and put them out on the table outside. So I set out in search of crackers. I pictured something in a big red box, and possibly a Ritz sign, logo, or title. I wandered aimlessly scouting for crackers that I assumed we would be using for some sort of dip before dinner. After a few minutes of looking around cluelessly and not finding any crackers, no ritz, no wheat, no table, no sesame, no water, no crackers of any gluten assortment. I finally asked Graham (which by the way you do not pronounce like we say the Graham cracker, it has two syllables, similar to Gray-ham), regardless I told him I was trying to find crackers, but could not. He kind of looked at me like I was an idiot and pointed to a box sitting on the table, which did indeed contain "crackers." I looked at him laughing and said, "Oh haha, I was literally looking for eating crackers...", once he understood that I had no idea what a Christmas cracker was he laughed as well and understood my confusion.
Well you might know what a Christmas Cracker is, but I did not. It is a paper tube with fancy decoration that you pull apart with the person next to you. Whoever has the larger part that pulls apart (making a cracking noise, hence the name crackers) gets the gift inside, then they put on the Christmas hat (I think more accurately it should be called a Christmas paper crown) inside and tell the joke that comes with it. The gift I won inside was a fingernail clipper, my hat was green and my joke was:
What do you call a blind dinosaur?
--A do-you-think-he-saw-us.
Not enough of a laugh, well here you can see me in my super awesome and newly renamed Christmas paper crown (recently renamed for accuracy from the more commonly known Christmas hat name.) Not only will the silliness of the hat make you laugh, but this photo captures the pure surprised and goofy essence of muah...OK actually it was me looking with awkward curiosity at the little orange light that comes before the flash of a camera and hurrying a smile, but I digress:
Well after the hats, jokes, and little gifts the feeding frenzy started. On another side note, Australia is supposed to be famous for their bbq's(need I remind anyone of the famous phrase, "throw another shrimp on the barbie, mate.") You would think that being here for nearly 6 months I would have had tons of bbqs. But nope, this was my first one (definitely not my last since my Christmas present from my Dad was a bbq, thanks Dad, and I am sure there will be many adventures involving that BBQ to come.) Well James' family knows how to do it right. First we had "angels and demons" which are either dates wrapped in bacon or oysters wrapped in bacon. Then we had some delicious skewer things that had sausage and scallops with salad. Then we had salmon cakes and a different salad:
Then we had oysters Rockefeller, and some delicious scallops:
Well like any holiday in the states it is all about over indulgence with food. And oh did we ever. There was apparently a final real meal and dessert as well but at this stage no one could manage to eat another bite. So we went in and participated in one of my personal favourite activities....board games, hooray!
It was a very different but very nice Christmas Eve in Australia.
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