Christmas Day

We celebrated Christmas Day in grand style at 12:01 am December 25. As you can see from the festive debris below, there were a lot of presents. Some were big, some were small, some were wrapped in themed paper ("nice" for Dad and "naughty" for Patricia), some were wrapped in newspaper, some were useful, some were frivolous, but all were fun.

I received clothes, jewellery, toys, knickknacks, skin care products and coal in my stocking (from Lee!). I was particularly thrilled with several pairs of fun socks from Patricia and Dad, including the stylish item pictured below. Enjoy the show because the chances of any of you seeing me in these again are extremely slim.

Below, Dad demonstrates Patricia's new sound blocking headphones. Apparently they work better if you plug them in.

Several hours later, we had a properly Australian Christmas dinner. Dad made a pork roast with crackling. The hardest part was finding a cut of pork that still had the skin on it. The American convention is for pork sans skin. For two days we travelled the length and breadth of Fresno in search of a cooperative butcher.

On about our fifth attempt we found a company that was prepared to sell us an entire pig with the skin still on. Figuring this was overkill we kept shopping around. Finally Patricia discovered that a pork shoulder (including skin) is called a pork picnic. Eventually we found the perfect piece and Dad magically transformed it into Christmas dinner. The crackling was such a hit with the American contingent that I'm considering establishing a pig skin empire.