Day 358! 9 more days till I get my boot off and back to surfing, 7 more days until I’ve been officially traveling for full year!

Happy holidays! Today I got adopted into the McLean family (my managers family) and they brought me to their grandparents house to celebrate Christmas with them. It ended up being a very lovely day filled with good company, good food, and a long jam session!

I woke up this morning a few times, but was able to sleep in until 9:30am. I forced myself to get up and going, finished my blog post from the day before, and made myself a light breakfast.

I knew I was in for some feasting with the festivities today, so I wanted to make sure I was prepared.

I spent the morning reading and watching some TV until about 1pm. I got a text from my friend Sam that they were on their way to pick me up! I made my way downstairs and outside and piled into the car.

The car was packed tight with Sam, Paddy, Simmo, and Bella all in the car as well! We were headed to Simmo’s parents house and they graciously included me in their family Christmas.

Honestly, Simmo and his family have been nothing but kind and welcoming to me. They’ve made me feel like part of their family since day one… and today was no exception!

We arrived to his parents house and I met Nana and Papa. I’ve actually met Simmo’s father at the hotel before, but this was my first time meeting his mother. They were very welcoming as well and were happy to have me as part of the celebrating. My coworker and their cousins, Grant, was there waiting for us as well.

We started off the celebration with some beers and a feast of prawns. Prawns are a fairly popular dish here in Yamba. It makes sense since we’re on the coast and there’s most likely an abundance of them.

The eating wasn’t done yet, and we had a roast for lunch!

It was a pork roast… which I’m not the biggest fan of eating pork. BUT since I was a guest on their Christmas, I was not going to say anything about this. So I ate it with a smile and enjoyed the wonderful conversations we had while eating.

We chatted about work, what’s going on in everyone’s lives, what my story was, and I learned a bit about Simmo’s parents as well. Simmo’s father was actually part of the first group of people to surf Angourie point! One of the most popular surf spots in town.

After eating lunch, the eating wasn’t finished yet. There was one more dish to have, dessert. For dessert we had an Australian dessert called Pavlova. It’s a very sugary dish consisting of whipped eggs, fruit, cream, and lots of sugar. Kind of like a very soft meringue. I guess it’s a pretty traditional Aussie dessert, so it was fun to try it out and be more engrained in the culture.

I thought it was pretty good, but I definitely couldn’t eat a lot of it.

After dessert, the eating was finished! And now it was time for Christmas crackers… not the food.

It’s kind of like pulling a wish bone, but you go head to head with someone and whoever gets the bigger side “wins.” Inside there was a Christmas joke and a tiny toy. Mine had a dice in it, Sam’s had a little plane, etc. A goody little tradition to add into the mix.

We helped clean up and then sat and chatted a bit longer before heading out! It was really nice to get to spend the holidays with a family and not alone, as it easily could have been!

The plan was to head to the shed and jam after, but we shifted course and headed towards Angourie to spend a little bit of time with two of Simmo’s friends.

We popped in and said hello and had a beer with them. I’ve actually met these friends at the pub, they ran our trivia night. It was a quick little visit and we chatted for the entirety of it. But then, it was finally time to jam!

We made our way to the jam shed and ended up jamming for 2-3 hours! We played every song under the sun and switched off on all the instruments. It’s such a blast to have people to make music with! This is something I always will need in my life! I love music and thank you to my parents for instilling that love on me!

It was overall such a wonderful day! I may not celebrate Christmas myself, but to be included in a families festivities and feel like part of their family. On our way home, I thanked Simmo again for including me and making me feel so welcomed since I’ve come to Yamba. He told me that I’m family and I make it easy being such a nice fun guy and that the world could use more people like me.

Now it sounds like I’m tooting my own horn. But this was such a nice thing for him to say! I’ve said it before, but I got pretty lucky finding this town and this job. I’m hoping I’ll be able to stick around till I need to leave Australia, but that’s still being worked on… so we’ll see!

Tomorrow… the craziness begins! I start work at 4pm and I should be getting thrown into a very busy work shift!

Cheers to Boxing Day!

– Elie