A LATHAM CHRISTMAS...

 With Shane and Sarah and family home so close to Christmas, it was decided that we should have a Latham Christmas this year, and Tina offered to host it.  The easiest way was to give everyone a list of things they could bring or bake and we just all share it...

So with our lists, we set off to prepare our food.  We were to meet at Dave and Tina's at noon on 12th December.  Unfortunately none of our children could make it, mostly due to Pete living overseas and the girls needing more notice so that they could have organised their schedules.  Sarah had her in laws there for the weekend to celebrate Max's birthday, and Chloe's husband Dan was on call for work...

Our Sarah though was keen to catch up with the cousins, so she ended up driving up the following day and we organised another family BBQ at the beach so that she could catch up...

Just about the time we were due to drive in to Tina's, a huge storm hit making it impossible to get from the caravan into the car... We had to wait a fair while until the rain eased before making a dash.

By the time we arrived in Bundaberg, the rain was bucketing down there also, and the only way we could get out of the car and get the food out was to semi drive under Dave and Tina's back patio so that we could get everything out and remain dry...

By this stage the rain was so heavy that it was running through their back entertainment area so in the end , we had to move all the tables and chairs indoors and strip out their lounge area to fit it all in there...

Regardless of the weather it was a great day..

The Latham women...

Wonderful Christmas spread

Table decorations...

Seafood galore...

My pumpkin, fig, walnut and feta salad....

 

The children were all fed first...  They were keen to open presents but we had to convince them that we needed to eat our lunch first....  It was hard on them....

Dave & Tina's grand daughter Coral

Lunch for the children

Whilst the children had their lunch, Sarah cracked a bottle of wine for the adults to enjoy..

And the men stood around outside enjoying a beer or two....

One the littlies were finished, the rest of us had our lunch and what a great lunch we enjoyed too...

Steve's Mum supplied desert, she made a couple of her famous plum puddings and a steamed date pudding and it was topped off with brandy custard and whipped cream and/or ice-cream.

Once lunch was over it was present time.  We had decided not to buy for the adults, just the kids, and they were super excited about this...They had been waiting a good couple of hours for this part of the day

Then it was time to get some family photos.... It has been way too long since we have been able to do this and I was a little sad that none of our children were there for this...

Joel and Gemma

Steve and I

Then we got some photos of the boys (brothers) together..

Photos of the boys with their parents.....

Then we got photos of us all together...

And finally some photos with Shane and Sarah's children...

Once the rain had gone, the kids enjoyed playing outside... It was great to have some outdoor time considering we had all been cramped in the house for most of the day...

It was a great day,  it has been so long since we have all caught up and I think we all feel that we need to do it more often...  It will be easier for us these days now with us both having retired...

It would be great too if we were able to go to the ACT to visit Shane and Sarah on their turf...

Maybe in the next couple of years.... maybe we could even take out grand children for a visit...