Christmas for 2008 is nearly over and it has been magnificent.

The day started a smidgen before 5AM due to the heat and by 5.30AM I had to get up. We were aiming to be over at George & Jude’s by 6:30AM to begin the present opening festivities – however we ended up getting there a little late by the time Hugo awoke and we organised him. As it turns out, when we arrived the house was still basically asleep and Cam, Tina & their kids hadn’t arrived yet either so we didn’t feel so bad. Once the kids arrived and we started opening presents, it was pandemonium – so much excitement and they were buzzing! We packed up some of our stuff and headed home at around 9AM.

Hugo went down for his nap when we arrived and as soon as that was sorted, the second of the ceremonies began. I munched down some cereal and savored a ham & cheese crassoint. It seems to be a bit of a tradition that the present session with the Buchanan clan goes off; every year the intention is to make it a little smaller than the last and a more metered but it never seems to pan out that way!

We worked our way back over the George & Jude’s for lunch with Andrew, Belinda, Ben, George and Jude and it was fantastic. Mum has been making the same style Christmas ham for a long time now and every time I eat it – it is positively delicious. Not wanting to go hungry, Jude had also prepared a collection of superb desserts – fair to say that we probably all ate too much but it is just so hard to say no to great food! Emily, Will, Anita and Oliver came over not long after we’d finished lunch to pass on well wishes for Christmas and we talked and caught up for the next few hours.

At 3PM, we made our way back over the Sterle, Lorraine & Grandma’s place where we chilled out for an hour or two. Conveniently, while the Lattimore family traditionally does a Christmas lunch, the Buchanan clan does a Christmas dinner. So with a couple of hours of recuperation from lunch, we got stuck into another excellent Christmas meal – which was followed by more scrumptious desserts.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised yet again by how tolerant Hugo has been with us today. We dragged him with us over to George & Jude’s early this morning for breakfast and he was presented with a mad house. We came back home to more people and then back over to George and Jude’s for lunch. He had his lunch time nap over there in a strange house, strange room, strange smell and didn’t seem to care one bit – which we’re obviously very happy about.

As an aside, one thing that you can’t take away from a small country town like Chinchilla, is that it doesn’t ever take long to get from anywhere to anywhere. While we were tripping about a little bit today between the two homes, which are on opposite sides of the town – we’re talking about less than 10 minutes of drive time. That is certainly something I miss about living in a city like the Gold Coast.

It has been a great day, lots of family, friends and plenty of decadent food. A bonus from Christmas day is that there is always left over everything, which makes for at least one day of excellent lunches and dinners. Bring on Christmas 2009 I say.