nine sleeps until christmas. and this year for the first time, it's at my house - and i'm hosting the indians. [well, i say 'the indians' more for effect, really. it's mainly my mum and dad and brother - though there may be some aunty&uncle&cousins action, too]
apart from the indans, we have the mum-in-law, the husband's brother and sister-in-law, and hopefully hopefully some mates of mine who i've invited to join us. it's going to be food galore with everyone bringing a plate, mum's bringing curry and dad's special spiced pork roast, we'll have cocktails and champagne and cold entrees and bbqs and waaay too much to eat. family's crashing here, and dad is getting all excited about having a percussion jam session on christmas night. pretty colourful family picture, huh? my family. who'da thunk it?
at christmas in fiji, we'd have a lovo. dig a hole in the ground, pile in river stones, then light a fire. then put in banana leaves, then all the meat and vegges wrapped in foil, then more banana leaves, dampened hessian sacks, and cover it all up with mud. four hours later, it'd be done and you could smell it for miles, the grumblingof stomachs would echo through the valley. all the food would be set out in platters on mats in the middle of the lounge room floor; we'd all sit on the floor & eat till we couldn't eat any more, then find somewhere to snooze. then wake up an hour later and have dessert. that was our tradition.
back when i used to live in fiji, you knew it was an extremely important occasion if the dinner table was set with actual cutlery.