Merry Christmas (and Happy Holidays) everyone!

"Compliments of the season" to friends and family 

in the US, UK, Australia 

... and in many other places, though the pages of facebook! 

It's Christmas Eve as I write this, and we're settling in for the holidays. It's hot, as you'd expect of South Australia, with the forecast for Christmas Day being 40, or about 106 in "the old money." Summer arrived at last, and came in with a bang.

I'm blogging this in a break during putting together an old-fashioned trifle. But rather than doing full-on Christmas-style catering, which would need the oven to be on for hours, we're doing a sushi and cold-cuts buffet for tonight ... and for tomorrow and Boxing Day we were smart enough to roast the poultry a few days ago, when it was cool. Chicken and duck are done and in the freezer. And for New Year, a certain turkey is still in the freezer, most likely at Aldi, where -- gotta give credit where it's due -- the prices are too good to go past.

So, Christmas Eve in the garden looks something like this: (Top: Bindabella Golden Tiger is blooming right on cue! Middle: Asian Lilies are going absolutely gangbusters this year -- more than 20 blooms, over the space of weeks. Bottom: Zolie on roof patrol, not long before sunrise ... "cat on a cool shingle roof" ...)

And meanwhile, in the house it's all about Christmas trees and what Calvin would call "loot," and lots of good things to eat, and Christmas music and movies ...

...and of course out the hills have burned out to golden brown, the beach is sizzling, and if Santa is wearing that red suit of his, he'll be in the ER before he gets done with Sydney in the wee small hours of tomorrow morning, out time.

I'll borrow a couple of shots from Dave's facebook right here. These were taken with his new phone (or, his new camera that makes calls...), an itsy-bitsy little device in the palm of his hand, that does amazing things at the same time as being shockproof and waterproof! I've just done a couple of tweaks on the color, since the camera favors reds -- obviously, it's geared around selfies, where you want warm skintones...

So there you have it: The Colors of Christmas Eve, South Aussie style.

And from Dave, Mike and myself ... Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, however you like to say it!  Here's hoping 2017 will be a better year for us all.