I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! We had several family catch ups and most recently ‘yesterday’ we had most of my husbands side of the family over for lunch plus a lovely family visiting from Papua New Guinea. We managed to borrow what we didn’t have including this larger children’s table to cater for everyone.
Aiming for less waste this year we used all of our own crockery, glasses, mugs, utensils etc instead of disposables. We also used cloth table cloths and serviettes and made most of the food from scratch. We wrapped any gifts we were giving in cloth ‘furoshiki’ style or loose in brown paper bags. For entertainment, we played Christmas music and put out the board games for a bit of family fun. It was a lovely afternoon.


For the menu:
- BBQ foods including Vegan hamburger patties and sausages
- Oven roasted potatoes and pumpkin
- Steamed corn, peas and brussel sprouts
- Garden salad, with beetroot, olives and pineapple slices on the side
- Garlic bread
- Dessert- we had apple pie, fruit salad and another guest brought a small trifle.
- For table snacks as guests stayed for most of the day- air popped popcorn, dips, corn chips, mixed nuts.
Presents wise: we did no presents for the adults on my side and secret santa for my husbands side. My children were lucky to receive from family- lego, a cricket set, a jigsaw puzzle, some ‘dig kits- with geodes and crystals in them) and some story and reference books.

I also wanted to share with you something we have done for the first time. Christmas Eve morning I wrote up a list of clues and things to find on an outdoor adventure- nature scavenger hunt. We visited an animal sanctuary with the annual pass we received as a present last year, so many of the clues related to the animals they would see there. Overall my children had lots of fun. There was approx 17 things to find, which I quickly realised was far too many. My children got to clue number 12, with snack and water breaks in between and had had enough. We skipped some of the clues and went to the final one which led them to a spot to get an ice block and to have a play which was a nice way to end the day.

I will be back here on Monday with a 2018 reflection post. Enjoy your weekend.