An unusual Christmas Day

When we first went to Japan we had to find new ways of celebrating Christmas, but that is a long time ago now. After 18 years of this missionary life, and only three Christmases in Australia in that time, Japan is the norm and Australia is the outlier (this year is our fourth). All our boys think of winter as the normal time to have Christmas, and having Christmas as a nuclear family is also normal. Expanding our celebrations to include extended family who live in different parts of the state adds to the strangeness of this time.

Sorting out how we would "do" Christmas wasn't easy this time, for various reasons. However, we finally managed to nail down a travel schedule late in November. We travelled up to Rockhampton (about eight hour's drive) to have several days with David's mum and then down to Toowoomba to my parents. 

At both places, we had or will have an extended family "Christmas Day". Involving presents and festive food. It turned out that, however, that the 25th wasn't a good day for either side of our family to celebrate together. So, to avoid awkwardness, David came up with the brilliant suggestion of travelling on Christmas Day and having our own nuclear family celebration on the road. Early on our all-day Christmas day journey one of the boys declared this was the weirdest Christmas ever, but after our lunch at a quiet park when we ate leftover roast chicken/ham sandwiches and fudge then exchanged presents, it was declared, "The best Christmas ever." Nice!

Here are some photos from the day:

A classic rural Australian road scene (at least within a few hundred km of the coast).

Where we had lunch.

Another tree in the park where we celebrated Christmas day as a family this year.

At our first stop, we found a bush that looked like it had been decorated just for
Christmas: but it was all God's decorating.

Exchanging presents.

Our last stop before arriving in Toowoomba. Such a classic park scene and blue sky.

I've found it challenging to have two mindsets these last few weeks: holiday/Christmas and finishing up our time in Australia. I've been switching between the two. At the moment we're trying to relax as deeply as possible and trying not to allow thoughts about what we'll need to do from next Tuesday (move house and leave the country in eight days). I hope that it will all work out in the end and that I won't be too much of a wreck before it's all done. Thankfully my indigestion has settled down for the time being (last week I was chewing antacids regularly). That's an indication that I'm getting some relaxation.

Now I'm going to sign off. We're about to go an play some "backyard" cricket in the park with the boys. I was serious when I said we're trying to relax deeply: we're immersing ourselves in an Australian summer, including watching cricket day and night. And now, playing it too!