Christmas and New Year

As cases of Covid continued to rise gently, mainly linked to the Avalon cluster which is where the second wave started, it was announced that the Northern Beaches would be cut off from the rest of Sydney, with the cut off line at Spit Bridge, and the Northern Beaches would be further split between North and South with the cut off line at Narrabeen Bridge (lucky we have all these bridges around!).  As part of the Southern Northern Beaches we were allowed 10 people in our houses for Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing Day.  This was fine for us as it allowed us to continue with our plans.  

Jules, Tom and Tess always like to spend an evening decorating a gingerbread house although I actually think they like being able to eat vast quantities of sweets in the name of creativity!  

On Christmas Eve we went round to the Mennie's for dinner.  Lisa had heard about Tom and Harry's fear of the stick monsters whilst at the farm and so she made Tom his very own Stick Monster who took pride of place at the top of our Christmas Tree. 

Lisa is an extraordinary present buyer but I was pretty pleased with the Burching Park Merch that I got for the kids, Jules and Craig!

Christmas Day dawned grey and a little bit showery.  Jules and I sat twiddling our thumbs, waiting to open our stockings, until about 9am when the kids finally got up!  Despite the rain we had to go down to Manly for our obligatory Christmas Day swim.  

We came back home for champagne, smoked salmon and present opening followed by a few games before it was time to start prepping for Christmas Dinner with the Wakes-Millers. 

Christmas Day was always going to be a very tough one for the Wakes-Millers but they were on great form and did so well.  Duncan, Arthur and Tenzin had just come back from an amazing hike in Tasmania so we were able to see lots of photos and hear all about their trip.  I insisted that we played some games in-between mains and dessert which Duncan is not a fan of but it stopped the younger boys from disappearing onto the PlayStation and Bella had bought everyone some Secret Santas which made everyone laugh - Jules and Tenzin both got a bottle of Monkey Gland Sauce - the mind boggles!  And we spent time remembering Barney and telling stories of him which was lovely.  All in all it was a very special day.  

The kids are all getting so tall!!

We then entered that period between Christmas and New Year when no-one is entirely sure what day it is and this year we were quite restricted as to what we could do.  The Sydney to Hobart, which is always a feature of Boxing Day for us, was cancelled for the first time in its history.  We had Sheldon's birthday to celebrate which we did at Forty Baskets because we were allowed to gather with 10 people in an outdoor area.  The celebration was brought to an abrupt end when the heavens opened! 

Jules and Andrew took Tom, Ewan and their friends sailing and they went out the heads and up the coast as far as Freshwater.  

And then it was New Year's Eve and we again waited with bated breath for the 11am announcement from the State Government as to what restrictions would apply to us.  It was decided that we were only allowed 5 additional people in our houses so we all scrambled to work out our plans that would keep within those restrictions.  We ended up with Tom at our house with 5 of his friends, Tess went to a friends house and Jules and I went to the Kernahan's where we were a little naughty because we had 6 people but Tony had just come out of 14 days confinement due to a Covid scare so we decided he didn't count as there was no chance he had the disease!

New Year's Eve walk with Kate, Trudie and Bec

Tess ready for her evening

Harry, Hugo, Max, Tom and Joe.  Ewan was taking the photo.

Kara, Lenka, Cath, Bec

Finally we reached 2021.  I'm not going to reflect on 2020 - it was a s**tshow and I think that's all that needs to be said.  I'm concerned that 2021 won't be significantly different, at least for the first half of the year, but we'll cross our fingers and get on with it.  

Duncan, Harry, Tom, Nina and Tia

Harry, Tom, Tia and Nina

Tom, Harry, Tia and Nina did surf patrol on New Year's Day.  Jules did the Manly-Shelley swim with Duncan and Bels - I'm very sad I didn't get a photo.  The Mennies came round in the evening and we had a perfect evening with lots of silly games, including Hunt the Thimble at the request of Darcy, and the smashing of the last gingerbread house.  

We also discovered that Tom has overtaken Tess in terms of height - that is a serious milestone and one that Tom is very happy about!

As I type we have just learnt that the Southern Northern Beaches are now being included as part of Greater Sydney which means we are allowed to go on our holiday to Byron.  It is such a relief and exactly what we need.