Christmas with my South African family...

Christmas Eve - The day started as Bob and I made the meal for everyone, and we decided to do turkey and stuffing. We found in the grocery store a 7 kg turkey! We were really surprised as normally here you only find small turkeys! So, yesterday morning I started making the stuffing, I must say, I think I have the Dad's recipe down pat! Thanks Dad for the recipe!

After I made the stuffing, Bob headed over to the Salida's to hang out and put the turkey in the oven. I came home and just relaxed! It has been so hot here lately...still weird having Christmas in the summer! A couple of days ago, while Bob and I were cleaning I found season 1 and 2 of Alias that Mum and Dad burnt me and mailed to me - I had forgotten that I even had them. I decided to start watching...so I started a couple of days ago. I am enjoying them...so when I came home today I watched some more episodes! Around 5pm I headed over to the Salida's to check the turkey and everything else. We ended up making turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy! I must say, Bob and I make a good team, I did the stuffing (with Bob's help) and the gravy, and Bob did the turkey and the mashed potatoes! My stuffing and gravy turned out good...just like my parents make it! We ate supper around 7 and then at 9pm, I had a skype date with my parents. I ended up talking to them for about an hour. It was such a good talk and it ended with me and Mum laughing really hard...(it's like we have 1 brain!)

When I was done with my parents, I went and we had dessert - I made Cheesecake Pie (Mum's recipe!). It turned out good, then we all just watched the movie "Get Smart" as it was on tv. We did Christmas presents with the Salida's but in their house, they wait til just after midnight to open presents. So, it was good that the movie was on tv, it helped the time go faster! LOL! Once the movie had ended, about 10 minutes after midnight the girls started handing out the presents. I got really blessed! I got a the Disney DVD - Up! (I haven't seen it yet, but looking forward to watching it), 2 Roxy shirts (one from Bob and one from the Salida's), a cute little keychain from Vaughan and Bob bought me a calendar for next year (South African) and a Willow Tree (it's called Anniversary)!

We were done opening our presents at about 12:45am, so we said our goodbyes and headed home. Once we got home I watched one episode of Alias and then headed to bed, although I couldn't sleep so I just layed in bed and I think I finally drifted off to sleep - the last time I looked at the clock it said 3:30am!!

This morning we had church service and then after service, one of the young girls got baptized, so we all headed to the beach! I must say, it felt awesome to put my feet in the sand and in the ocean on Christmas Day!!

After the beach, we headed back to the Salida's and made some turkey sandwiches (with cold stuffing!!) and now we are all relaxing. I came back home (which is where I am now) just to get a few more episodes of Alias in and I will go back to the Salida's around 4 and will be having supper there. Marchelle is cooking a ham!

It has been a great Christmas and I feel so blessed to be able to spend Christ's birth with my South African family!

I just wanted to end with a picture of me and Roxzanne in the ocean on Christmas Day!