Merry Merry

Merry Christmas from Oz! 

Wishing you the merriest and most festive trappings of the season!   

Michael, James and I spent a very relaxed Christmas here in Australia and, with the help of a couple of our American friends (and their chocolate lab, Angus), we managed to eat, drink and be merry despite being far from our families this holiday season.   Happily for us, we are friends with Melinda and Andy, who also live here in Sydney, and happier still, Andy is a more than capable cook and a knowledgeable oenophile and Melinda owns a chocolate fountain.  I can’t think of two people better suited to stage a Christmas celebration.  Unfortunately for Mel and Andy, the most I can say for Michael and myself is that we appreciate these traits in others and are generally easy to get along with.  Andy treated us to a multi-course seafood extravaganza accompanied by copious and artfully selected wines, and Melinda orchestrated a chocolate fountain to cap off the evening.  If you haven’t yet had the privilege of experiencing a chocolate fountain first hand, I strongly encourage you to rectify that oversight at the earliest opportunity.  You just haven’t lived until you’re wrist-deep in chocolate fondue. 

The Sydney weather continues to be uncooperative, so we didn’t get in the beach time we’d planned over the Christmas holiday, but hope springs eternal, so perhaps we’ll see some sunshine on New Year’s Day.  We plan to watch the annual New Year’s Eve fireworks show in the Sydney Harbour, which promises to be quite a spectacle. 

Happy New Year!