Every year my dad’s side of the family celebrate Christmas the weekend before the 25th. We all converge at a beach house near the beginning of the Great Ocean Road and eat, drink, swim, play games, sing, heckle one another and just hang out. It’s really lovely and relaxing.

I hadn’t been at one of these pre Christmas weekends since 2013 (last year we were in Brazil!) so I was really looking forward to it. My sister and her boyfriend flew in from Rwanda just in time to join us. Such bliss.

This year the location was a rental home in Point Roadknight, which is right next to Anglesea.

As you can see from our attire, it really wasn’t very warm!

That didn’t stop the swimmers though. My sister and I were kicking ourselves for not bringing our swimsuits.

I became kind of obsessed with getting a good photo of these old jetty posts.

That afternoon we went for a drive. We stopped at a lookout where three German backpackers were trying to capture the perfect dude photos for one another. You know that weird pose guys do where they don’t smile and they kind of hold their arms kind of stiffly in front of them?! They were doing that.

I chuckled and admired the view.

That evening us ‘kids’ were in charge of dinner. We made gourmet burgers, I was in charge of fries. I’d never made fries before and somehow absolutely nailed it?! Bet I’ll never manage to do that again.

The next morning a bunch of us decided not to let the mild 13 degree temperature stop us from swimming. We’re kind of a competitive family, so people don’t like to chicken out of things, be it swimming in Antarctic temperatures, singing loudly or giving impromptu speeches.

Needless to say it was cold. Luckily the world’s most expensive canteen is right there on the beach ($10 for a bagel!) so we warmed up with coffees.

I bought a new camera lens which is really huge and I’m still getting used to it, hence these photos are so close up!

We had a Christmas lunch on Sunday afternoon. It started, as most good things do, with cheese.

This time, the ‘Grown Ups’ were in charge of the food.

After lunch we did our ‘bad santa’ Kris Kringle, which involves choosing a present from the pile or stealing a present off someone else.

It was pretty hilarious and went on and on…

The most frequently stolen items were a portable charging device, a bottle of gin, three giant Toblerones, a cool hip flask and a JB Hifi voucher. A crazy cat lady action figure, which has appeared at the previous two Christmases, did the rounds again.

Cheeky passed out from all the excitement.

Dessert time! The table was heaving with dessert options but I only managed this snap of the perfect mince pies.

And finally, a class photo:

Another great year with the Brewins. How was your Christmas?