Christmas 2008

Both Jason and I got to finish work around midday on Christmas Eve which is a great treat. It was a totally hot day so we hid indoors for the afternoon though. That evening Jason and I picked up Fiona (fellow kiwi from Work) and her sister Evelyn and went to Melanie's (also from my work) mums house for their family Christmas Eve dinner. It was nice to be included in a family dinner and we were even given presents!! Melanie warned us that her family was loud but both Jason and I didn't think that would be a problem given our families... however- 4 sisters can make a hell of a lot of noise we discovered. We had a good evening though and it was nice to be amongst family mayhem again even if it wasn't our own family.

Christmas Day 2008 was totally different to any Christmas that Jason and I had ever celebrated. For the first time in both our lives we were totally on our own. Just the two of us. We were woken up about 7am Christmas morning to our first of a few Skype Calls. Jason's dad saw that we were online and decided to give us a bell. Next up was my family for their call. Its good to see the family when talking, although it does make it a little hard at times as well.

Jason and I were very lucky to get some great presents this year... here is what we got:

Jason:

• Remote control helicopter
  
• Damascus steel 16.5 inch cooking knife
• Coffee pot
• New shirt and cufflinks
• Bonsai book
• Multi tool

Jacinda:

• Diamond earrings
• Ipod Nano
• Beautiful jewelery- two necklaces, two bracelets and a pair of earrings
• Vase
• Cactus

Both:

• Cirque du soliel tickets
• Yummy Christmas Cake
• Yummy homemade tomato sauce and relish
  

After all the calls to family Jason and I still had three hours till our lunch so we decided to go to the beach. This was perhaps the wrong thing to do. We were surrounded by hundreds of large groups of people enjoying the day and celebrating. There were groups everywhere with Champagne and food. There we were just the two of us, it really hit home then that we were alone. I considered joining a massive group and seeing if anyone noticed :-)

After observing for a wee while we decided to head home as it was a bit hard for us. When we got home we both went our separate ways for awhile... just reflecting I think and trying not to be down. I watched some Grey's Anatomy on the laptop and Jason played some games on his PC.

Finally it was time to head to lunch... in fact 12.00 was on us and we were still at home. We both quickly changed and headed down to the Matilda Bay restaurant... here it was easier than at the beach. There were a few more tables of two so we weren't the only orphans.

Here is the restaurant from the outside:
And the beautiful view of the Marina with the iconic Perth city skyline in the background.
Here we are...Jason looks drunk but he hasn't had a glass of wine yet :-)
Jason checking out our little presents from the restaurant...a little box of yummy lollies... and our yummy bread with REAL butter (mmmm) and great olive oil and dukkah.
We had a great little tasting plate with 4 bites on it to start with (sorry no photo though). I had the crayfish for my entree and Jason had the feta, zuchinni and mushroom tart, We both totally enjoyed the Wagyu steak for our main course...Jason sure does love his knives :-)Mmmmm steak!
For dessert I went the refreshing lemon and lime route....And Jason went the double (well triple) chocolate route...All in all it was a great lunch and well worth the money.

Later in the day we washed down lunch with a great swim in the sea and played in the waves. Christmas day was rounded off with some hot oven fries for dinner and an early night for us. Well that's all for now. I hope you all had a great Christmas day, we were thinking of you! Till the next post!