[Tamara]

Same here, but needless to say if you attached a pedometer to your hip or somewhere you’d be surprised as to how many steps you’d clock up just by doing laundry and dusting.

I have just returned from the school assembly where, yes Noah got the award for top in his class for history and Imogen was mentioned as house captain and also was awarded for high achievement in her naplan scores (it is a national test that all students in years 3,5,7&9 do each year and she made huge gains in reading and maths).

It is just nice to have some recognition finally for their achievements.

[Jane]

What wonderful accomplishments at school. Congratulations to all for their hard work.

What keeps me motivated to keep running is signing up for events. If I didn’t have a 5K, 10K or now a 1/2 marathon on my calendar, I would easily put 100 other things ahead of my workouts. I also have my girlfriend (and neighbor) that runs and trains w/ me. Obviously she doesn’t run on the treadmill w/ me but we text each other pictures of the treadmill display when we can’t run outside together. We also run most races together. Knowing that someone is counting on me to be at the start line w/ them is big motivation to keep going. My other motivation is my children (particularly Piper, my son is a runner himself and ran his first marathon this fall at the age of 14, finished in 4 hours 10 minutes so he doesn’t necessarily need me to be an example). I think it’s important that she see me do things like running and showing her that it’s okay to be a strong female as well as take time to do things for yourself.

Jane

[with love Heidi]

Meleliza, I’ve been thinking about your Aussie Christmas question and initially thought some things would be similar, families, friends, food, although some of the food would be different. I doubt if you would eat yabbies at Christmas!

But “Carols By Candlelight”, outdoor carol singing! IdIn the park or school or church grounds, sitting on the picnic blanket, eating your picnic tea (dinner), kids running around, real or the new battery operated candles (depending on the restrictions), the evening is warm after a much too hotay, waiting for it to be dark enough to light the candles and waiting for the carols to start. Then being part of a whole park full of people singing together, all the old favourite Carols and a few of the new ones. Something about the whole community coming together to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus born so long ago.

[Tamara]

Meleliza picture this! Driving along a hot and dusty gravel road singing a very made up version of the song the 12 days of Christmas (it featured a cola can in a gumtree?). The kids are rowdy. The air con is going flat out with the car reading the outside temperature as forty two degrees! It is 6pm and all the participants are tucking into their fizzy drinks just to quench some thirst.

We arrive at the “country club” and walk into a non air conditioned shed where the little kids are playing with their tonka trucks in the gravel out the front with their dads standing around chatting together and drinking whatever they’ve brought with them. There are tables all set up with plastic dinnerware and crackers in anticipation of dinner later that night. The kids get a gift (brought by their parents) from a Santa (often one of the grandfathers or great uncles) and they bounce around equally thrilled over their gift or sit their (in my daughter’s case) analysing Santa’s attire, trying to figure out why he doesn’t look quite right.

We all sit down later at the table where the local priest leads the grace and gives thanks. Then we eat and talk and nurse the tiny babies so their mums can actually eat.

This is what my family did last night. We went to a Christmas party in a community that has merged with ours and that we haven’t participated in for years. It was a fabulous evening where the kids were actually happy and not crying over the meanies that are there at the other parties. They announced we will be back next year they had such a great time.

The trip home involved going slower down the gravel road because we had to avoid unnecessary collisions with the young kangaroos that were out feeding on the unharvested crops.

Christmas for us here doesn’t require formal party dresses but we still get together and celebrate with those around us in a more backyard barbecue type style of get together. We save dressing up for church which is often on Christmas eve and Christmas day. I do love the Christmas eve service. It starts the whole thing off for me.

Oh and I feel compelled to answer what might be asked. Yabbies are like little lobsters! They are farmed using farm dams and can also be found in creeks. You eat the tail part which curls up and the meat is sweet. But personally I can’t go last the blue manna crab! Nothing like laying the table with a newspaper cloth, utilising the nut cracker for leg cracking purposes and buttering white bread (it has to be white) to make a crab sandwich with thousand island dressing. Oh I can taste it now! It is so worth getting up very early to take the boat on the river to get your catch then bring them home (in there own water) and cook them up!

[with love Heidi]

Ah, Tamara, the Aussie Christmas carols! My favourite is “dashing through the bush in a rusty holden ute”! It is sung to the tune of Jingle Bells, dashing through the snow. . .

[meleliza]

It all sounds very foreign indeed. For us, the weather is deeply ingrained in Christmas imagery. It’s all about a light in the darkness, which of course stems from pagan European customs but came to be symbolized by the birth of Jesus after Christianity. That imagery of keeping warm in the cold, hope in the shortest days, trickles down into each and every secular song and story too. Of course, I don’t suppose it was cold in Bethlehem.

So what do city Aussies do?

[Sarvi]

Why wouldn’t it have been cold in Bethlehem?

[Lightning McStitch]

For our non-religious inner city Aus family, Christmas has always meant getting up to open presents. Play with new toys. Eat far too much at lunch then conk out (rest) for a while before having a water fight on the front lawn (water restrictions may interfere). Then there’s about 12 days or so of trying to incorporate ham into every possible meal.

On the News and Current Affairs topic, I’m just back from a holiday in Mexico! First time we’ve escaped our kids for more than 24 hours since they were born. So 10 days (even if almost three were lost in travel) of holiday and a culinary tour of Mexico was AWESOME!

Now I’m frantically trying to make the Christmas present bag and wallet for my MIL that I need to have ready by Wednesday. And then, and only then, will I get to catch up on my Blog list, the Flickr pool and all the other distracting, fun stuff that goes on here….

[Tamara]

Oh that sounds absolutely awesome! Getting away from here would be a dream come true! I haven’t shared this before but we are currently locked in a battle of wills with my fil and his new fiancé over the lease of the farm. The fiancé is driving the cart behind the scenes I am absolutely certain of it – she is not our cup of tea AT ALL! Unfortunately what is wanted and what is the actual going rate for lease has an extremely wide gap. We have been attempting to work it out behind the scenes with the accountant. Unfortunately our extremely generous offer has been turned down in favour of an old man’s insistence on getting his way.

I hate family arguments at the best of times and this one is the worst yet. We are in very real danger of losing our home when the hopes and dreams of the future were to swap houses and establish a happy family home in the homestead. Now it seems inevitable that the strong will of my fil will drive us somewhere else.

We have our own land but our house isn’t on it. I won’t go into huge massive detail but that again was insisted upon. The whole thing is absolutely heart breaking. This new wife to be is a bit of a gold digger and last week we were on the phone with the only family farm succession planner in Australia. He had a list that by the end of Murray telling our situation had a tick next to each point of what people do in order to get everything.

We have just placed our final offer on the table and if this isn’t accepted we will most likely have to find a new home and just farm our own land.

It is a lesson will have learned greatly from and that is when our son or daughter grow and want to take over from us, we will do things earlier and much fairer than what we are currently experiencing.

So a holiday anywhere but here would be bliss right now, just in order to escape the stress more than anything.

And Lightning, even the religious conk out and have a siesta on Christmas day – and have leftovers for dinner.

[Tamara]

Meleliza, it might be hard to imagine seeing as Bethlehem is in an arid country, but it does actually get very cold there (desert conditions in winter can be extremely cold without the snow) – not sure if it does actually snow.

Heidi, i had trouble remembering the traditional version of 12 days but the Aussie Jingle bells is an all time favourite in the house too! I love the line “we all shoot through before the washing up.”

[Sarvi]

Haha, yes, perhaps it’s like the not-so-bad dry heat — it’s a “dry cold”.

McStitch, you were just around the corner, you should’ve waved hello.

We’re quasi-immigrants — that 1.5 generation that understands the old language a bit but doesn’t properly speak it, still celebrates the old holidays but goes for the new ones too. In our house we celebrate Persian, Chinese, and American New Years, Thanksgiving, American Independence, and Christmas. We might be getting something going for Hanukkah as well since my daughter has Jewish classmates and has taken an interest in it. It feels a little more comfortable to adopt a tree with ornaments, giving gifts, new pyjamas (learned that here!), lights, and cookies since these don’t seem to be part of some key sacred core of Christianity. She wanted a menorah this year and I hedged. We’re atheists so we don’t want to be rude and glom on to something with a deep religious significance that’s not for people not of a given faith or culture. I’ll have to ask around and see if there’s something we can incorporate in a respectful way. Perhaps we could ask if it’s ok to attend a gathering as guests and bring something.

[Mama_Knowles]

I sure you could Sarvi, we are Christians here and are always happy to have guests at services for the holidays. I would think it’s the same way there. Our Christmas is always centered around Christ birth for us. : )

[Sherry]

Tamara I am so sorry to hear about your family conflict, it must be very worrying. The fiancé seems to have appeared quickly, it dosnt seem that long ago your mil passed away. Whats the saying about an old fool.

I do hope you can all come to a compromise soon without too much heartbreak. If every you get as far as Sydney I think we need to have a cuppa and swap family stories.

[Lightning McStitch]

I’d wish you up a holiday if I possibly could justsewist. Sounds like an awful situation. Curious to read about in the weekend paper when it’s Bob Jane, or Gina Rinehart, but not anything you want to see your friends go through.

[Nicole]

Wow Shelley, that sound amazing. I look forward to the blog post on that!

I am sorry Tamara, I wish I could say your situation was unusual but we both know it isn’t.

Sarvi, I think that is a wonderful idea.

I teach my children about many different religions. I think the focus on being a good person is the most important part. The rest is personal choice.