Christmas 2016

Well everybody, it has been some time now since I put up a blog post. The last one was when I went to New York and to my mind nothing that interesting has happened. BUT I think about it and my life has been a whirlwind since then.

I got a new job! I work part-time in an amazing IP law firm while I’m finishing uni. They recently made me an offer for a full-time position beginning after I sit for the California bar. Josh and I moved to Oakland. I think my next blog post will be about where I live. It’s an incredible place. But for now, my first Christmas living in the US.

Firstly, Del’Osso farms. This is a farm about 90 mins away from where Josh and I now live. It specialises in holidays. At Halloween, they have corn mazes, haunted houses and pumpkin blasters. That’s right, they blast pumpkins out of some weird cannon. Not making any further comment about strange American habits.

Since it was Christmas time, they put on Christmas. This is me in front of the general store.

I’m not entirely sure why they sell wild game jerky and how the ducks I’m standing next to tie into the whole Christmas theme but there is warm apple cider. No, I did not have any because more and more I’m finding that what I think something tastes like and what it actually tastes like is completely wrong. Josh and I took a walk around the place as it was starting to get dark. We saw…

So Rudolph was with five other reindeers (Josh tells me there should be eight) but Josh and I thought Rudolph has some seriously “come hither” eyes. AND what happened to his leg?? I mean what bad thing has Rudolph ever done to anyone. I guess even though Santa put him at the front to light the way for everyone, he’s still getting picked on. The next creepy thing was …

Creepy Santa all in lights. He kept flashing on and off. It was weird. Josh and I started just walking around waiting for our friends and their children. Children make every holiday so much better. There’s that excitement and anticipation that you really lose once you’re an adult. So when the kids arrived, we went on the train!

Okay, so we had to wait for the train and someone was unimpressed by that. Trust me, if I could have done that, I would. It was really cold and when the train finally came, the train driver refused to let us on because we didn’t have a ticket. There was no one else in line and I mean come on, just let us go on the train. So off the guys went to buy tickets for everyone and then back into the line again.

The train ride was very nice. There was tooting, and lights and …. more tooting. At one point the toot was really loud and deep and I thought how strange such a small train would make such a loud noise but no, there was an actual cargo train coming up alongside and so our little train driver had a toot-off with the big train driver. Very amusing. I guess if you drive trains all day you have to find your humour somewhere.

After that the kids wanted a pony ride. I stayed well away because horses freak me out. I know they’re just looking to trample someone given the chance and don’t even think about putting me on top of a horse. Ever. Also no horse carriage rides, my nightmare. Okay, tirade over. The pony rides pretty much marked the end of the farm for us. We went home and began preparing for the Christmas lunch we were going to have in our new house.

It had been raining the past few days so thankfully Christmas day turned out to be gorgeous.

Josh and I were entertaining on a budget. So with a tablecloth/bedsheet, and plates and bonbons, we prepared our Christmas table.

And how did we make it much much better? With friends!!!

And that was the end of my first Christmas living in the US. I hope all of your celebrations were as fun.

Talk soon!

Sim (& Josh)