Happy Holidays! Merry Christmastime!

It's been a couple of years since I last celebrated Christmas in Australia. Both Sean and I don't have any family here in Melbourne so we decided to have Christmas dinner together at my place. We started off the afternoon with hors d'oeuvres of zucchini chips, salsa and tortilla chips, and a cumin pinto bean dip and rice crackers. Sean also made a French 75 cocktail, but used cognac instead of gin.

For dinner we had a mixed green salad and roast pork with pumpkin and potatoes. Despite the warm weather is was nice to have a roast dish since I am used to a cold Christmas. While digesting all the food we had eaten we indulged in a marathon of Season 1 of RuPaul's Drag Race UK. After a while we finally had room for some dessert, which consisted of snowball cookies and a rosewater and pistachio cake that I had baked (all gluten free). It was a lovely afternoon/evening and a nice way to celebrate the holidays when you do not have family around.

To Jesus, Thanks For Everything! Jinkx and DeLa

I was fortunate that while I was home I got to attend the holiday-themed show To Jesus, Thanks For Everything! Jinkx and DeLa by two of my favorite RuPaul's Drag Race alums Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme. My cousin Leilani joined me and we first had a yummy Mexican dinner at Papito Hayes before walking to the Herbst Theatre at the San Francisco War Memorial for the last show of this tour.

As Ben and Jinkx pointed out, December is a very popular month for drag-themed holiday shows. This one was written by both of them and played on their drag personalities, with the upbeat DeLa being a Christmas tour de force while Jinkx was dragged along for the ride, drinking side of stage and trying to get DeLa to acknowledge her Jewish heritage. There were many musical numbers and costume changes throughout the show, with my favorite being DeLa as a Christmas tree and Jinkx in a Star of David blue dress with menorah strapped to her back.

The show touched on a lot of different topics in a really intelligent way, including religion, politics, cultural appropriation, and toxic masculinity and misogyny. It was all very funny and we were laughing out loud throughout, especially when the tables turned and Jinkx had to motivate a despondent DeLa to finish the show. I also enjoyed the clips of DeLa's attempt to create a Rudolph-like stop motion animation that were interspersed through the evening.

I am so happy I was able to go to this show, and finally get to see DeLa perform live. I hope that both them will bring either their solo shows or do one together in Australia in 2019.

Christmas 2018

Happy holidays from the USA! I arrived home on 16 December and have been busy finishing up Christmas shopping, catching up with family and friends, and baking up a storm for tonight’s annual Christmas dinner. This year it was a full house with my aunt and cousins, and my brother and his family (including in-laws).

We started with hors d’oeuvres of cheese and crackers, grapes, olives and Camembert cheese and cranberry sauce filo bites. My cousin Leilani and I also enjoyed a few cups of mulled cider, as is tradition.

Due to the number of people, dinner seating was split between the dining room and kitchen table. Leilani and I were on kid wrangling duties with Lei’s daughter and my niece and nephew. For dinner we had a buffet set up in the kitchen with pear and walnut salad, bread rolls, roast turkey breast, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, scalloped potatoes, and tamales. It was all very yummy.

After opening presents (and there were a lot of them around the tree) we had dessert. I made mini gingerbread houses, sugar cookies, snowball cookies and apple pie. We also had Belgian mini cream puffs and my sister-in-law made peanut cookies with Hershey’s kisses. Everyone was very full and a lot of dessert was taken home for eating in the coming days. It’s always nice to be able to spend the holidays with family, especially with the younger ones.

Merry Christmas

It's been two years since I was last home for Christmas. Since my brother was working on Christmas Day he and the kids came over to my parents' house a couple days early on Saturday for lunch and to open presents. Logan, Kylie and I also baked some Christmas sugar cookies together. It was really nice to get to spend some quality time together.

Today we had our annual Christmas dinner with my Aunt Chris and cousins Lei, Mei and Fiorella. It was our usual menu, which allowed me to get some of the Thanksgiving meal I always miss out on. We began with different cheeses for hors d'oeuvres also had my favorite mulled apple cider. For dinner we ate my Mom's famous jello salad and then had turkey, stuffing, scalloped potatoes and green beans for the main meal.

After digesting and opening presents we had dessert, which is always my job to prepare (I did all my baking yesterday). We had a selection of pumpkin pie, sugar cookies, snowball cookies, and mini gingerbread houses, which came out really cute considering it was the first time I made them. We were very full by the end of the night, but everyone had a good time. I'm very happy I was able to spend the holidays with family this year.

Christmas In Sorrento

A few of my friends were kind enough to extend invitations to me to join them for Christmas, and I took up the first offer I received from Onagh to join her and her extended family in Sorrento along the Mornington Peninsula. We got a ride down to her cousin's place, which has recently finished being renovated and has a great beachy vibe.

We had a beautiful spread of food for Christmas lunch, with a salmon roulade to start and then ham, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, snow peas and a couple salads to eat for the main. Everyone wore their crowns from the Christmas crackers, and we enjoyed the breeze out on the deck during the hot afternoon.

After opening presents and having a bit of Christmas pudding for dessert, everyone headed down to the beach at Lavender Hill, home of the Sorrento Sailing Couta Boat Club. It was a beautiful afternoon and swimming in the water from the bay was the perfect way to cool down.

We headed back to the house for some more celebrations in the evening before heading back to Onagh's aunt's house up the road to sleep. It was a very Aussie way to spend my Christmas, although tempered by the bushfires in Wye River and Separation Creek along the Great Ocean Road which saw the loss of 116 homes.

Holiday Season In Melbourne

As someone who did not grow up celebrating the holidays in the southern hemisphere, it is hard to get my mind to equate Christmas with summer. The only things that remind me are the holiday decorations around the Melbourne CBD (which I will note are only Christmas and not other holidays such as Hanukkah). There are the annual items like the Myer Christmas Windows, City Square becoming "Christmas Square," light projections on Melbourne Town Hall, and decorations on Flinders Street Train Station. This year they have added a lit Merry Christmas sign across the Yarra River on the Princes Bridge, and a Lego Christmas tree in Federation Square. It's going to be a warm one this year, and my first Christmas back in town after spending the last three years overseas celebrating with family.

Christmas Dinner 2014

One of the great things about being home for the holidays is that I get to attend the annual Christmas dinner that my parents hold each year. It sort of makes up for missing Thanksgiving. Since my brother was working today it was just us and my aunt and cousins this year. Leilani arrived early as she skipped going to my uncle's house and benefited from listening to her traffic app which told her not to go through San Francisco. Chris and Mei were not as fortunate and it took them over 3 1/2 hours to get through the City to our house due to total traffic gridlock. What a nightmare! By the time they arrived we had already indulged in the hors d'oeuvres, including baked brie, bacon wrapped pineapple bites, shrimp cocktail, and my favorite holiday beverage mulled cider.

After breaking open some sparkling wine for the weary travellers, we grabbed our plates for dinner. Mom had things set up buffet style this year and the menu was as follows:
- Jello salad
- Biscuits
- Roast turkey
- Sausage and herb stuffing
- Spinach gratin
- Goat cheese mashed potatoes
It was all very yummy even though the stuffing got a bit dry due to the longer than expected cooking time (gravy fixed the moisture issue). After eating and chatting in the dining room we went into the living room to open presents before hitting up the desserts. I spent all of Christmas Eve baking apple pie, a pistachio and rosewater cake, sugar cookies and snowball cookies. Thankfully they all turned out pretty good! Everyone was well and truly full of holiday cheer (and food) by the end of the night.

Christmas In The Forest

It was a beautiful day in Kalorama, located in the Dandenong Ranges, for Peter and Mark's Christmas party.  Fran was kind enough to pick me up along the way out there.  It's been quite a few years since I was last up at their house, and this year they held the party on the grounds near their live Christmas tree, which was decorated for the occasion.  As the tables and picnic blankets were set up on a slope it was a running gag all afternoon that we would end up rolling down the hill.  People brought different dishes to share for lunch, and music was supplied through people taking turns picking some vinyl to play.  Instead of traditional Christmas hats Peter had decorated some Fez hats for people to wear.  There were a few musicians in attendance, including Greg McCanish from Skyhooks, Andy White, and Nigel Griggs from Split Enz.  Fran and I chatted quite a bit with Andy, who we saw live last month at The Toff for his album launch.  After eating lunch the presents were distributed, and Peter managed to string up a Santa pinata to a tall tree branch for Rosemaree to hit (not sure Santa with a noose around his neck screams Christmas).  Overall it was a nice afternoon amongst the trees in the forest.

Melbourne Christmas Decorations

Being in the southern hemisphere you can't rely on the weather to signal that it is the holiday season, so it's good the Melbourne City Council does so much to decorate the CBD and get us all into the Christmas spirit.

The best part of the Christmas festival this year is the light projections on the Melbourne Town Hall by The Electric Canvas.  Starting at 9pm each night the Christmas themed show takes you to celebrations around the world in the span of seven minutes.  It's definitely worth sticking around in the city until after dark to be able to check it out.

Myer Christmas Windows

The Myer Christmas Windows are in their 59th year at the Bourke Street store in Melbourne.  The theme for this year's display is the book Santa Claus and the Three Bears by Maria Modugno.  It's a Christmas twist on Goldilocks and the Three Bears with Santa wreaking havoc on the three bears' home.

Happy Holidays

Last night my parents hosted their annual Christmas dinner at the house.  My aunt and cousin Leilani came, as well as my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew.  This is the first time James has made it to a Christmas dinner in years since he's usually working, so it was extra special.  We had a bit of an antipasto platter for hors d'oeuvres as well as my favorite drink- mulled cider.  It was good to catch up with Chris and Lei and celebrate my aunt's retirement.  When the kids arrived we had the fun task of wrangling Kylie away from the Christmas tree as she was going after the ornaments (my Mom was smart to put the soft ones at the bottom of the tree).  Logan was very silly and running around but settled once we all headed into the dining room for dinner.

This year my Mom made a Christmas version of her Jell-O salad with a layer of lime Jell-O and pineapple on the bottom, sour cream, then a top layer of raspberry Jell-O with raspberries.  For the main course we had biscuits, roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and a cranberry and apricot chutney.  It was all very delicious.  Lei brought us a red and white wine for dinner as well.  The kids were very well behaved as we ate our meal.  After finishing we headed back into the living room to open presents (I was impressed by Logan's patience in waiting so long) and then it was time for dessert.  I made pumpkin pie and snowball cookies and Mom made these lemon and cranberry pie bars.  We were well beyond full by this point but that's always part of the family gathering- good conversation and lots of food!  I'm glad I was able to be home this year to celebrate with everyone.

Christmas Dinner

It has been two years since I was last home for Christmas so I was really looking forward to the annual Christmas dinner at my parents' house.  Before dinner though there was a lot of cooking and cleaning to be done.  I baked up a storm on Christmas Eve, making sugar cookies, snowball cookies and pumpkin pie while Mom made tiramisu.  When my aunt Chrissie and cousins Leilani and Meinani arrived we had the cookies along with cheese, dip and crackers for hors d'oeuvres as well as my favorite holiday drink- mulled cider.  As is the case most years, my brother had to work so he was unable to join us.  Simi, her parents, Logan and Kylie were running late, so by the time they arrived and settled we were ready to sit down for dinner.

As requested Mom and Dad made some of my favorites for dinner.  We started off with vegetable soup, and then had turkey, stuffing, scalloped potatoes, green beans and biscuits for dinner.  Lei brought one of the sparkling wines from our little wine country adventure- the Gloria Ferrer Va de Vi, which everyone enjoyed.  Logan was pretty well behaved throughout dinner, but the lure of presents under the tree became too hard to resist, so as we finished we headed out to the living room to open presents.  All my gifts were Aussie themed this year as I bought nearly everything before I left Melbourne.  We were also treated to a photo slide show of Chrissie and Lei's trip a few months ago to Sicily and Italy during dessert.  It was a lovely evening, and the kids were very well behaved. 

Today Mom, Dad and I headed up to James and Simi's for lunch.  It was good to finally see their new place, which they moved into a couple months ago.  We also got to give James his presents and finished up opening the rest of ours.  It was a bit sad to say goodbye to everyone as I have had such fun spending time with my niece and nephew on this trip.  Tomorrow afternoon I head back to the airport for the long flight to Australia.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!  I hope you have had (or are planning to have) a great day.  This year my manager Elvira took pity on me and invited me to join her family for Christmas lunch.  We had quite the traditional/Italian feast with antipasto dishes, snapper, turkey, stuffing and roast vegetables.  As we were resting from this yummy meal the hot weather became thunderstorms and we got hit with a massive hail storm- some of which were the size of golf balls.  It was pretty insane and the ground was covered in hail (a white Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere, if you will).  This kicked off a series of about four different massive thunderstorm episodes throughout the rest of the afternoon/evening with thunder, lightning, hail, torrential rain and even a tornado warning throughout Melbourne.  I've never seen anything like it before.  We watched each storm in amazement as we continued into our dessert of fruit, cheeses, pavlova and Christmas pudding.  At one point lightning struck one of the transformers on the street and the power went out with a huge explosion.  It will definitely be a day we won't soon forget.

Presents Everywhere

Christmas may have come and gone, but due to the post office my Christmas keeps continuing.  The box of presents from my parents finally arrived on Wednesday, chock full of little surprises including lots of excellent kitchen gadgets, See's Candies, local calendars, and a personalised Christmas stocking and ornament.  Then today I picked up a box from the post office from my aunt, which included a festive blouse and a hand sewn apron from my cousin Leilani.  The apron may be my favorite gift ever- it's so cute!  I can't wait to wear it while baking, but that will be well after all the See's Candies is gone from my cupboard.

Happy Holidays

Since I was not going to fly home for the holidays, Clinton invited me to join his family's celebrations this weekend in Rosebud, which is about an hour and half south-east of Melbourne.  The boys picked me up and we drove down around noon on Christmas Day.  His family were very welcoming and even had little Christmas presents for me (which was nice because my presents from home are currently MIA and likely stuck in customs).  I brought some snowball cookies to contribute to the meal and a bottle of wine, which turned out to a favorite of Clinton's father.

The weather was warm but not too hot and the backyard tables were festively decorated.  Various family members stopped in and joined the celebrations throughout the afternoon.  We had so much food to eat starting with chips, dip, cheese and crackers.  We then had prawns, barbecue steak, sausage, shish kebabs, coleslaw and potato salad.  On top of all this food Clinton's brother, who is a bartender, was mixing drinks and made sangria as well as various fruit daiquiris.  After digesting the late afternoon lunch we ate Clinton's pavlova and my cookies for dessert.  There were lots of funny stories about growing up in Rosebud and we played a few games.  It was a nice evening.

Today we woke up to some rain, but it managed to clear by early afternoon.  Since I haven't ever explored the Mornington Peninsula before, Clinton's parents took us for a bit of a drive around the area.  We started with a walk in Arthurs Seat State Park with its great views of Port Phillip Bay and the Seawinds Garden, which contains several sculptures by William Ricketts.  The chairlift to the summit isn't working, but Clinton, Kevin and I took a picture on "Arthurs Seat."  We next drove down to Point Nepean Road and through the various seaside towns on the way to Sorrento to visit Clinton's brother, who was working.  We took a walk along the front beach and out onto one of the piers.  After some fish and chips at the restaurant we headed back to Rosebud and then packed up the car for the drive back to Melbourne.  It was such a lovely weekend and a great way to spend the Christmas holiday.

Myer Christmas Windows

Every year the Christmas decorations seem to appear earlier and earlier.  Australia does not have the buffers of Halloween or Thanksgiving to keep things under control, so the official launch for all Christmas activities here is the start of November (although I saw decorations up in October).

For the past 55 years Myer has created Christmas windows based on a certain theme at their store in Bourke Street Mall, and this year the focus is The Nutcracker.  The windows attract huge crowds and I often pass a line of people waiting to see the display when I walk through the mall on my way home.  All the windows have sound and animation, with Santa narrating the story of The Nutcracker in each window this year.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! It has been a long but fun day. We started the morning with 10:30 am mass at St. Raphael's Church where I saw Lynne, Jeremy and her family as well as my great-aunt Lorraine. Once we got home it was time to finish cleaning and get started on cooking dinner. As has become an annual tradition, my Aunt Chris and cousins Leilani and Meinani came over for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately James was working, plus with the new baby he and Simi weren't going to be able to come down this year.

We started with cheese and crackers and some mulled cider before moving into the dining room for our big meal. My mom made Jello salad with cranberries, and then it was time for the main meal of scalloped potatoes, turkey, stuffing, and broccoli. All of it was delicious, and Lei also brought a couple different bottles of white wine to have with dinner.

After finishing eating we went back out into the living room to digest food and exchange presents. Lei was furiously knitting to finish up one of my gifts- a scarf. When we had a bit of room in our stomachs it was time to hit the dessert table. All of that baking from yesterday was now available to eat. I had a little sample of everything, and the apple pie came out well. It was another successful Christmas dinner, and as always nice to spend time with family over the holidays.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I started my Christmas Day at the 10:30 am mass at St. Raphael's Church with my parents. After mass we did last minute preparations for our annual Christmas dinner. My aunt and cousins come over to join the family each year and it's always fun to catch up with them. Unfortunately my brother had to work this year, so it was just his wife Simi and their dog Chloe. Chrissie, Lei and Mei were a bit late arriving as they got caught in traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge from people trying to get into the observation points. Their tardiness didn't stop me from enjoying multiple cups of mulled cider though.

We sat down for dinner around 6:00 pm. My mom loves a festive table and did a tablescape of cranberries and roses as well as individual name cards with cute stickers and stockings with treats. We had a very yummy meal consisting of the following:
- Vegetable soup
- Bread rolls
- Turkey
- Ham
- Dressing
- Potatoes
- Green Beans
It was all delicious as usual. Of course we had a lot of left over food but that will just be eaten in the upcoming days (plus we sent home a tupperware container for my brother).

While we were digesting our dinner and making room for dessert, my cousin Lei gave us a presentation on her summer trip to Europe. Not only did she have photos but props as well. It was great to hear about her travels and see pictures of Switzerland, Spain, France, Italy and Sicily. Next we exchanged presents and then it was on to the dessert table. I had done the majority of the baking the day before having made the pumpkin pie and sugar cookies and helped my mom with the snowball cookies. We also had cream puffs and petit fours. It was sugar overload but very good and we were all extremely full by the end of the evening. I was happy to be able to enjoy Christmas with the family as I only seem to make it home every other year to celebrate with them.

The Party Season

It's that time of year when you can't escape attending a bunch of parties. On Friday we had our Department Christmas party at work. By 2:30 pm most people were outside in the Printer's Court vying for shade and a cool drink. It was a very hot day so I only lasted an hour and a half before heading home.

On Saturday Michelle held her 30th birthday party at the Fitzroy Victoria Bowling and Sports Club. After eating a barbeque dinner we headed out to the greens to commence lawn bowling. By the end of the night my bowling had improved significantly. Michelle had four flavors of cupcakes for us to eat for dessert. It was a fun night and good to catch up with everyone.

Today I headed up to Kalorama for Peter and Mark's Christmas party. Rosemaree was kind enough to give me a ride. The boys have purchased more art since I was last up there, so we had a bit of an art walk around the house. Lunch was good but we had so much food to eat I was bursting by the end of it. I got a nice picture frame from Rosemaree and this beautiful bronze statuette with mirror from Peter and Mark. Overall it was a very busy weekend but nice to spend time with people I haven't seen in a while.

Merry Christmas

Tonight we had our annual Christmas dinner at my parents' house. I finally got some mulled cider (yay) and my cousin Leilani led us through a wine tasting exercise. She started by having us smell different things that we might find in the wine (50 possible scents!) and then we tasted a variety of red wines. I couldn't really decipher the exact things I was smelling/tasting, which I chalk up to the fact that I'm not a big red wine fan.

Dinner was very delicious, and as you can see we had a wide variety of things to eat. I was happy to have some turkey and stuffing, and the sweet yams with pecans served in an orange were great. After dinner we opened presents and I now have some new gift cards to spend. Then we ate dessert, which included a pumpkin pie and snowball cookies that I had made. Overall it was a top night and one of the main reasons why I wanted to come home for the holidays.