Here we are a week into the new year and I thought an update was in order. December was a busy month as always.

On the first, the Scientist turned sixty and I took him to Penguin Island to see the little penguins, also called fairy penguins. We had a tour booked and it takes a bit over an hour to reach the launch point so drove down early on his birthday. The actual island does have lots of little penguins that come to shore at night but we saw none in the wild during the day. We did see the penguins that have had injuries or are old and live in captivity instead. They were pretty beautiful. I still find myself amazed to find penguins living in our climate since I always thought of them as being only from the cold environment of the Antarctic.

We stayed in a hotel nearby for two nights as a little getaway and had a lovely time. The second day we spent in Mandurah trying to find the giants that were created by the Danish artist, Thomas Dambo. There are six of them and one is located in Perth. We found three of them and tried really hard to reach a fourth one but took a wrong turn and missed out. This was the last one we tried and we were too tired to go back even once we realised our mistake. Our plan is to go back sometime during the year and finish up. The fifth one is meant to be discovered using clues from the other five. The giant in Perth we will see before our next visit to Mandurah. Sadly, some nasty piece of work, or perhaps nasty pieces of work burned one of the giants last month. We had already seen this one but it just makes me mad that someone would do such a thing. They plan to rebuild that one but I don’t know when that might happen.

I’ve never been on top of things when it comes to Christmas baking and usually, we’re doing some sort of cookies on Christmas Eve along with a bunch of other things. This year I started earlier and I baked quite a few treats. The first thing I did was Christmas M&M cookie bars and those came out quite well but were seriously too sweet. Still, they were well-liked by the boys and I ended up doing a second batch on Christmas Eve (which turned out a bit dry and wasn’t as good). I also tried making German lebkuchen which is a first for me. We’ve done gingerbread many times but this is a treat I remember enjoying on my visit to Nurnberg, Germany where they originated. I remember loving them and taking a bunch with me on the train ride away from there. I didn’t have any other food and I got thoroughly sick of them before I finished them. Still, I have a good memory of them. The ones I made came out okay but not as nice as the original ones. There’s dried fruit in them and I wish I had blitzed it in the food processor to make a smoother batter. I just didn’t like the texture of the pieces of fruit in them. I didn’t even realise that was a part of them until I found recipes. The glaze was okay but didn’t dry hard as I wanted. I found some store-bought ones after Christmas that had chocolate on the base and I had forgotten that. But I might try them again next year.

I also tried making shortbread and that mostly worked aside from the fact one tray got slightly scorched. They were really easy to make so I plan to try them again. I also tried making Danish butter cookies as Lego Lover likes to get the ones from the store. The batter was quite easy to make but we didn’t have a piping bag that fit the nozzle and so we were using an itty bitty one for making cookies. It was hard to do much with the tiny nozzle and the cookies were a bit thinner than they should have been. I’m not sure if I will try them again, mostly because Lego Lover didn’t seem to be interested in them. That said the taste seemed about right. I’m not a big fan of either of these as they are so rich but was glad the mixing of them turned out to be so easy.

I also found a recipe for Polish gingerbread cookies which I had not heard of before. Apparently, they are quite a big thing in the city where they originate in Poland. I made dough for these many days before Christmas, which the recipe says to leave out for at least a night or two before rolling out. I assume this is with the expectation that the weather is cool or cold so I didn’t do this but put it in the refrigerator instead. We had too many things by Christmas Eve so I didn’t bake them on Christmas, saving them for later. Instead, I made them after New Year’s Day and they came out pretty well. The best thing about them was the Scientist didn’t find them too sweet and was able to help me eat them. They are supposed to be glazed but I opted to have them plain. They were a bit dry but otherwise quite nice and not too strong with ginger like some tend to be. I cooked all these cookies in our air fryer/little oven and it was quite easy to do with the short cooking time coinciding with the time it took to roll out more cookies.

Lego Lover had his 24th birthday during this time and it mostly went okay. The main hiccup happened when one of our dogs leapt onto a couple of raisins that accidentally fell on the floor and we had to take him to the vet in the midst of the celebrations. Not that we were doing a lot that day but it was more about time than anything. The dog was fine and Lego Lover did enjoy his presents, cake and food. My MIL had made some pancake rolls filled with a meat mixture that he likes and he also had one of his favorite curries, beef rendang, for dinner. I also made waffles earlier in the day, which he thoroughly enjoyed. This is the first time for making them on his birthday. Overall he was pretty happy with things although he had some mental health issues pop up that night, as often happens on the day.

Christmas Eve went better than usual this year and I finished all the cooking I had quite early (for me). I found a better way to make my usual veggie patties and it made things easier. I also cooked them in the air fryer which made a huge difference in time and heat in the kitchen. They cooked better and took far less time plus the lack of massive heat was a major plus. We watched Carols by Candlelight on tv, which is a yearly tradition and then we drove around looking at Christmas lights once it got dark around 8:30pm. This year we found quite a few more houses decorated than in recent years and didn’t have to travel far to find them. In fact, several lovely displays were right here in Ballajura. Once home, we watched the carols again and went to bed once they finished.

Christmas Day started early as we went to the usual Christmas breakfast held by family friends. There were quite a few people this year compared to last year. The breakfast is a traditional Sri Lankan Burgher one with breudhar (a sort of fruit bread baked in a tin shaped like a bundt cake), edam cheese and bananas plus love cake and, meringues and Sri Lankan Christmas cake. I don’t suppose this tradition will continue for too many more years as the hosts are getting older and won’t be able to carry on for too many more years. Also, the numbers are rapidly decreasing in this crowd. People don’t hang around too long at the breakfast and soon we are back home with the boys (who haven’t attended in many years).

Since most of the preparations have been done ahead of time, most of the work today is tidying up and preparing the patio for people to be here. The Scientist cooked roast beef and a turkey on our Weber kettle and Weber Q grills, which kept the kitchen a lot cooler. We were able to relax more than usual on the day. The dinner itself was nice with the food we provided and salads by others rounding out the day. Also, we had two desserts but they were both smaller which made it easier to finish. Plus a yule log that was brought unexpectedly and which was eaten only by me (slowly over many days). After dinner, we did family games inside. The Scientist and I had bought the Songpop Party game on Nintendo Switch earlier and had that set up to play. There were a few glitches with the phones added for play at times but it mostly worked and we had some fun trying to pick out songs. Then we had a board game called Decrpto that turned out to be great and even engaged one of the family who doesn’t usually actively play. We had another game purchased to play but there wasn’t time. I assume we will try that out with some of our game-playing friends. We got them at the most local game shop which is next door to the bike shop where I was getting a new tube for my bike tire that had gone flat last year. The boys aren’t big on the crowds on Christmas so were relieved when we had the house to ourselves after everyone left. That’s always a tricky part of the day for me. I like getting together with everyone but knowing how hard it is for the boys doesn’t make it easy. The family that attend is down to a minimum so hopefully, we can reach a good balance in the future.

I will also mention that Christmas is also the Scientist’s younger brother’s birthday so we did have a little celebration for that in the midst of the Christmas stuff. We almost forgot to do the cake and everyone was full but got that in just as everyone was leaving.

The Boxing Day to the eve of the NYE period was pretty low-key. There was a cricket match to watch on tv and we all had our own things to do. New Year’s Eve followed our usual routine of doing our own thing most of the evening and then getting together for the last couple of hours with chips and dip and special fizzy apple and grape drinks to celebrate. We heard lots of fireworks going off earlier in the evening but didn’t see anything. It was enough to bother the dogs just a bit. Midnight came and went and then we were off to bed and it was a near year.

Well, I think I’ve written quite a tome here but wanted to cover a lot of material in this post.