It’s official! Our one New Years resolution when it comes to blogging (we won’t bore you with all the improbable, impractical or just plain impossible ones that generally centre around the depth of the dent we leave in the gravel path each morning) is to take more photos. We are utterly ashamed at our slap-dashery in this department to date which has resulted in what appears to be the blogosphere’s cardinal sin: we have only one shot of the entire festive season.
Oh, the humiliation! Not only is it taken at the very end of our celebrating, Homesteader’s Only Boxing Day, but two of us are still wearing our farm gear and there’s nothing styly or pretty about our table setting. Lucky we’re all friends here.
Like many people, the celebrating of Christmas goes on for a while. We start on Christmas Eve with a pot luck dinner, a Santa-spotting stroll, and secret Santa gifts around the tree at Oma and Pop’s house. That there is now no one that fully believes any more is immaterial; eyes still scan the sky for that tell-tale sleigh and reindeer silhouette whatever the age. You just never know.
We Homesteaders have never been morning folk. Not once have we had one of those Christmas Days that is all finished before the sun wakes up and this year was no exception; The Goat Herd and Milk Maid managed to polish-off the morning chores before the others had even registered the presence of stocking on bed-end.
With loot opened there was just time to spruce ourselves up a bit before The Ezekiel Tigerlilys appeared at the gate-in-the-fence for coffee, cake and redelivery of a couple of wayward presents. Even Santa is allowed a slip up or two with the kind of working day he puts in; besides he probably knew the two recipients were scheduled to visit on the big day.
This year it was the Homestead’s turn to host the family brunch barbeque which all went without a hitch. The new oven combined with the antiquated barbeque allowed us to churn out a goodly table-load and digestion was aided by a Farm Girl (and assorted bit players) after dinner recital that would not be out of place in a Jane Austen novel.
Thus followed a mad cross-town dash to share seasons greetings (and dessert!) with the convivial, genial and, considering how late we were, gracious Clan Doherty and The Elders. The quality of the desserts on offer (home made ice cream and a pavlova of exquisite proportions) ensured we remained mum about our earlier efforts – besides it’s rude to talk with your mouth full.
All this by way of explaining why our eyes are bugged, our smiles slightly lopsided and our presentation sloppy in that one existing photograph. We truly promise we’ll try harder next year and thank you all from the bottom of our haphazard hearts for taking the time to stop by and read this year’s offerings.
Happy New Year to you all.
Union Homestead 
Your posts are always welcome whether full of photographs or not, Happy New Year to you all, may 2016 be full of pleasant surprises.
I love the idea of pleasant surprises and wish the same to you 🙂
Sounds like a lovely few days of feasting, festivities and family. Loved the Austenish recorder recital. We’re at a whopping 8 C this morning, but Christmas Day was cold and wet, so it’s hard to imagine BBQ brunch, but I know it’s normal there. We, thanks to our climate enjoy the traditional English style feast – roast everything and flaming plum pudding. I did once have to finish cooking the turkey on the BBQ when the power went out due to a wind storm. We had a candlelit dinner that night, and not just for show! I admire the ambition to do more photos, good luck. I should probably make my resolution regarding the blog something along the lines of – just do it. Happy New Year Homesteaders! Hope it’s a wonderul year for all of you, menagerie included.
We have had two Christmases in the Northern Hemisphere and, apart from the likeness to a “proper” Christmas card scene, the ability to stack away masses of traditonal fare without feeling utterly ill was a great draw for us. How fancy: flaming plum pudding. Inspired by the lovely Tui Flowers we made our own this year and then followed her suggestion and slapped slices on the BBQ…much much nicer than it sounds 🙂
Happy New Year right back at you all; may it be fruitful, favourable, but most of all fun!
My Dad liked to fry his leftover plum pudding slices, so barbequed pudding doesn’t sound as outlandish as all that. I am super impressed that you made yours from scratch. I have always bought mine – I often think I’m going to make one, but never have yet. The fancy flames are all about the brandy – I was never more successful than the year I used His Nibs’s very valuable and only for special occasions cognac, a relic of some duty free opportunity in the Navy a decade or so prior. The pudding wasn’t the only flaming thing when he found out how much I’d used…but the marriage survived, and I’ve learned that cheaper alcohol works almost as well. Did you ever read Arthur Ransome books as a child? Was it in Coot Club or The Big Six when the three Death and Glories invite Tom the doctor’s son aboard for a fancy feast and serve him a flaming pudding for dessert? They didn’t have booze of course, being children, so they used methylated spirits. And a lot of sugar to choke it down after. Hear, Hear to the pleasant surprises of 2016.
Any posts with recorder music in them are perfect so the lack of other festive illustrations was entirely immaterial. Best wishes for a happy new year to all at the Homestead.
As you are one who plays recorder regularly, I thank you for turning a deaf ear to the creative time keeping and tuning and being so kind. We do have a lot of fun with these much maligned instruments. Happy New Year to the Tootlepedals from all of us
Hi, Well, I can go one better. I have no photographs of Christmas festivities. They seem superfluous at the time and you need willing victims.
Have a great summer!
We find we just get so caught up in the moment that we forget to record it which just goes to show how out of step we are with “the norm”. We also find that the people we like to be around are the same 🙂
I love the recorder music! Your Christmas was just as Christmas ought to be – full of food, family and fun. Life and Christmas is too short to be forever taking pictures!
Thank you for being kind about the music and overlooking the galloping time keeping and creative tuning. We do have fun with it, though 🙂
It was lovely!!