CHRISTMAS EVE AND THE ROCKY CHRISTMAS LIGHTS...

 We have a Christmas Eve tradition at our place of prawns on the lawn, but this year there were only Steve and I for Christmas Eve as Dan and Chloe were spending time with the Bertucci family..

As we weren't going to be home for Christmas at our place, there wasn't a lot to do to get ready for Christmas, so we decided to go check out the Christmas lights in Rocky instead...

Normally with prawns on the lawn, I would do a cheese, and fruit platter as well, and we would have a glass of wine...  Well the wine was not going to happen as you cannot drive and drink wine at the same time.

Cheese platter to nibble on as we made our way around town...

I decided to do a cheese and kabana platter to take in the car with us so that we could nibble our way around town...

All dressed in Christmas gear to check out the lights....

The first few places we visited were on the south side of Rocky... Steve had seen the first one in Spencer Street the night before when he went for his walk and wanted to show me, so it was our first port of call..

From Spencer Street, we checked out a beautiful lit home on Upper Dawson Road that I had seen the night before when coming home from the shops...

At this home, Santa greeted us whilst we were still in the car, handing out candy canes.  They well and truly were into the Christmas spirit.  It turns out that the I knew the lady who lived there as her children had gone to school with our kids.  We chatted for a while and take some photos of her front yard...

The house across the road also had Christmas lights, depicting the wise men that followed the star to the birth of Jesus...

For years there was always a really good display in Agnes Street but the last couple of years they didn't put up their lights.  Driving past before we headed to Bargara we noticed a lot of work going on setting up the Christmas lights, so we definitely had this one on our list of places to visit and it so did not disappoint.  It was stunning and very popular.  We took quite a few photos of this home...

This house was one of the better displays we saw around town.  We are very spoilt in Rocky as there are several really beautiful homes decorated for Christmas..

 From here we headed to the South side of Rocky and in particular up along Frenchville Road...

There is a home in the Blue Gum Estate that is beautiful lit up year after year and we headed here first...Dan parents live just around the corner from this home, so we gave them a ring and they walked around the block to join us...

There were a few houses in this estate that were all decorated and the other one we really liked just happened to be on the corner allotment at the end of the street where Dan's parents lived.

By now it was almost 9pm and we were running out of time... There was still a street in Norman Gardens that we wanted to visit.  This whole street decorates for Christmas and is absolutely beautiful so we didn't want to miss it...

By now it was time to head home.  Other than our cheese nibblies, we still hadn't had dinner, and we had fresh prawns waiting for us at home...

I had also made up some Italian Bellini's to enjoy with our Prawns in the Lounge this year...

Instead of prawns on the lawn this year, it was prawns in the lounge....

A little different to our normal Christmas Eve evenings, but it was a lovely night and I really enjoyed the down time with just Steve.  I Love savouring the moments of this time of year...

Big day tomorrow as we celebrate once again the birth of Christ.  We have been blessed and have been invited to spend it with Chloe and Dan and his parents...