You know it's Christmas

You know it's Christmas when the KP mangoes (preferably from Bowen) are at their peak, the cherries from Young have ripened and there's a premium price being paid for the wild Tiger prawns from the Gulf of Carpentaria. We queued up at 6.45 this morning at Sea Harvest at the Fyshwick markets to snag this bounty. It was a very festive queue experience, luckily, with everyone in good humour (despite the bleary eyes) and free cappuccinos being handed around by shop management to make the wait easier.

You also know Christmas is coming when the usual rituals commence: school break ups with all the accompanying concerts, ceremonies and graduations......

Abi performed in her first Christmas concert this year....

And we helped celebrate Sophie's excellent Year 12 result (ANU here we come!) and Maddie's hugely successful "Gap Year" (ACU here we come!) at the Hyatt last Wednesday afternoon..

.......and then there are all the other celebrations, end of year work parties and Christmas get togethers. It's all rather hectic actually.

We had our annual pre-Christmas get together at Murrumbateman last night, a ritual (and celebration) we all really look forword to. Even the cows were keen to join in too.....

But we kept things pretty traditional with everyone contributing beautiful food: Merimbula oysters for starters and whole baked salmon for mains, and fine wines (of course).......

We were lucky to have Sophie and Thomas join us this year..and they even indulged us in a bit of (mostly off key but very enthusiastic) Christmas carol singing too...

I think we're ready for Christmas now!