Christmas Eve BBQ

On Christmas Eve we tried something different this year. We put out all the gifts from families and friends under the tree with help from Ashley the little Elf (on previous years Santa gave them all the gifts according to the boys, and we wanted to make sure Santa only fills the stockings and not all the presents were from Santa). The kids were very good at not wanting to open the presents - just happy to see lots of wrapped up gifts under the tree.  

Our friend Stefan organised a BIG Christmas Eve BBQ by the pool so I got the kids dressed up in Christmas colours and off we went! (Matthew had to work till 9ish unfortunately...)

We started off the BBQ with some Japanese Takoyaki making... but the security came and told us off for using the gas cooker - I guess it was a fair call :(

There were lots of people at the BBQ, some were Stefan's Aussie rules football teammates and of course lots of pilots.

He put on some delicious meat he flew from Australia! 

The kids had a ball! With so many friends they never stopped running around the condo. But they were all back for this Christmas Pinata Stefan organised.

The BBQ went on till late.  Matthew came back and joined the party and a good social night with his work mates. We still had to assemble Oliver's bike by the morning plus more wrapping to do so we were planning to leave the party not too too late but...

We ended up going to the second phase of the party at Stefan's place.  

By the time we got home and put the kids to bed, it was 2am! whoops!! Of course some of us were slightly too drunk so we set the alarm at 6am to finish up preparation for the kids presents and went to bed. It was such a great night but maybe next time we need to be slightly more sensible...