It’s Christmas Eve everyone this is not a drill, welcome to Blogmas day 24! In less than 24 hours, or 12 hours by the time I’ve published this post, I’ll be sat on Coogee beach wearing my swimsuit and a Santa hat enjoying the hot weather and good company. Christmas has always been my favourite time of year and the memories that accompany the season are just as wonderful.

I really wish I had more old photos at the ready so I could give myself and you guys a good chuckle, but for now a written collection of some childhood memories and the photos my Mum was able to dig out and send pictures of at such short notice will have to do. I don’t actually have the memory of one of these stories because I was so young but my Mum always tells me about it and there are photos somewhere back home to go along with it.

You know how most kids run downstairs at the break of dawn and rip all the wrapping off their presents? Yeah I didn’t do that. My Mum was always left baffled as to why I would come downstairs in the morning, have breakfast, and then take my time to unwrap all my gifts. It would take me hours and whenever she’d ask why I’d say I was appreciating the moment, which is a little deep for a child, but I enjoyed going through what was under the tree at my own pace because if I rushed it then it would be over too quickly and I’d have to wait another year to do it all again.

Back in infant school I was always cast as a Shepard for the Nativity play, which would involve wearing a teatowel on my head and not actually having any lines to say. But in year 2 I was finally cast as the lead angel, and thus my climb to stardom begun, I mean just look how smug I am in this photo:

Something I’ll never forget though is how every year until I was around 12/13 I’d be ill on Christmas Day. You can imagine how annoying this got as a kid when all I wanted to do was open presents (albeit slowly) and play with the toys I had received. I remember one Christmas where I had to take a break and nap between opening them because I was too ill and lethargic to enjoy it. That sucked and I’m sure my Mum didn’t enjoy watching me like that either. Although one funny thing that came of being ill when I was 1 was that me, my Mum and Dad went to Charlie Chalks (does anyone else remember that place?!) and I sipped a bit of my Dad’s pint of beer and proceeded to throw up in it. Every time one of them tells me about it it makes them laugh, and even to this day nothing has changed because I still don’t like to drink. I was a happy baby/toddler, but who wouldn’t be with a gigantic polar bear teddy?

Even today I still make that face… Watching the fireworks from every major city on the news is something we’ve done every year, and I’ve always wanted to celebrate the countdown in every one of those places. This year I’ll finally get to tick one of those off the list by spending New Year’s Eve in Sydney watching the harbour bridge fireworks.

Something I will miss tomorrow is watching all the Christmas specials of both programs I watch all the time like Mrs Brown’s Boys, and shows that I only watch the Christmas episode of, like Doctor Who. I’m sure I can catch up on them some other time though, but to be honest Doctor Who scared the crap out of me until a few years ago, so at least I’ll have a break from being traumatised this year.
Until tomorrow guys,

Liv

xo