Family time - Christmas Day

What can I say? Today was a day to remember!

...well it certainly finished with a light show and a bang! Thunder storms rolled in across Melbourne in the afternoon bringing damaging hail.
We were fortunate that we are quite protected from the extremes of these kind of Summer storms where we are and "only" got pelted with these hailstones -some were not so fortunate, with cars and property being damaged by hail the size of my lens cap!

But back to earlier in the day.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I was hosting my family Christmas lunch.  With a guest list of 14 plus 2 toddlers a buffet lunch is the best option.

I am very glad that I did a lot towards today in advance.  Deciding to cook the meat last night and have it cold with hot veggies worked a treat and certainly took a lot of pressure off the cook!
The meal was deemed to be 'The Best' and a last minute visitor (who would have been spending the day alone) commented it was Just the Christmas she had wanted.
(Isn't that what every hostess likes to hear?)

Tree time had a new helper with Great Nephew #1 helping DH (who was 'playing Santa') deliver the gifts.

Tomorrow we are off to visit my DH's side of the family.......