Santa on a Surfboard?

There are two days until Christmas, and I'm wearing shorts. Santa's suit is not fuzzy, red, and warm, no, it is a swim suit and his red Santa hat magically stays atop his head as he rides into town on his surfboard. From what I've gathered, Christmas day is spent at the beach, barbequing and frolicking in the ocean instead of curled up inside watching the snow drift by. Christmas in Australia is just plain odd, since Christmas and cold weather are apparently interchangeable in my mind. And Christmas day, here at the hostel in Lennox Head, Steve and I will be hosting the Christmas BBQ for all the backpackers since Graeme and his wife (the owners of the hostel) are having their family over for the holiday. I fully intend to nominate any backpacker who even mentions his/her skill on the BBQ as head-chef and will relinquish my duties...I mean, come on, me in charge of a BBQ?!

Life otherwise has settled into some kind of routine. Steve and I have been working hard almost 5 days a week at our job, remodeling a woman's backyard shed into a living space/meditation room/no more storage room. It has been great for the money, but the woman is a bit strange and hard to work for. Quite frankly, she stresses me out because she'll come in periodically to check our progress and change her mind about what she wants, list off 6 different things to be done (all contradicting one another), asks our opinions, and then promptly dismisses them because I don't think she was interested in the first place. As for the remodel job, I'd be surprised if the building was even standing if I came back in a couple of years seeing as she asked us to use rusted nails to hold the ceiling up and rotted boards as framework for the plywood walls. I almost want to write a disclaimer and hide it somewhere in the room, denying any responsibility for the shoddy craftsmanship because Robinson Construction taught me to build things better than what this lady wants.

Luckily, we're on a short vacation for Christmas, then we're working another week till New Year's and then she's off to Tasmania so I think work will be finished for a while and we can have a proper summer vacation at the beach, when it's not raining. Because that's what it does during an Australian summer. It rains, a lot. Although, as per Murphy's law, the rainy days seem to coincide with the weekends and the sunny days with our work week. I'm really not that surprised.

Yesterday, Christmas came early when we got back from work and found a huge package from home with all sorts of goodies and presents (prezzies in Australian). Mom and Dad sent us cameras, something I greatly appreciated since my current one has dust/waterspots floating around on the lens and I can't get rid of them. I think it's also a hint to start taking more pictures. And I really should since I've been in Lennox for almost a month and have about 2 pictures. Oops!

Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone back home and my friends in Europe! Love you all and I hope you have a great holiday season and enjoy your time with family. I miss you guys. Eat some good Christmas food for me since I'll be chowing down on hamburgers and most likely dodging raindrops. Happy Holidays!