We've been having unseasonal weather for Christmas, with lots of rain and chilly temperatures of 24C. 

Three years ago it was a scorcher at 40C with hot dry winds. I actually prefer what we're experiencing this year, because it means we have an appetite for all those yummy Christmas foods, like pudding and custard and fruit mince tarts.

When it's 40C you don't feel like preparing or eating anything.

Usually families go down to the beach for Christmas and Boxing day and it's so packed, there's hardly a spare inch of sand. Yesterday there were some families on the grassy parks adjacent to the beach, but hardly anyone was on the cold, wet sand, or swimming.

 A favourite family activity is a game of cricket, with young and old as well as the family pets joining in. Games played as the day progresses, are fairly amusing to watch, depending on the level of alchohol consumed.

Boxing Day is supposedly named after the tradition where wealthy families passed on their unwanted gifts to servants the day after Christmas and is usually spent at the beach or barbeque, here.  Today it's raining on and off , so we're indoors again, happily polishing off left-over turkey and pudding and custard.

Turkey is a food introduced into our family tradition by Dag, since it reminds him of childhood Christmases. It is not reallly popular here, though, people preferring cold cuts of ham and chicken and boiled prawns which have been chilled, served with vinegar or cocktail sauce. 

My mum always made traditional steamed pudding, done in a calico bag, so I decided to give it a try this year. I've baked them in the past, but the steamed pudding is so much moister. Luckily, as I mentioned, the weather has been cool, because it takes about 6 hours to steam one pudding and if it had been like Chritmas gone three years ago, it would have resembled Hell's Kitchen, for sure.