So much for worrying about being lonely this Christmas as both of our families are in Australia and probably were having a shrimp on the barbie with nice cold aussie beers…

 

Thanks to my dear friend Marina and her family for inviting us to their house on Christmas Eve. She came up to my cubicle one day at work “Hey Tash… what are you gonna do for xmas?” I was like… hmm dunno yet, well we don’t have anyone here so probably just stay at home. She said to me “you have to come over to our place on Christmas eve.. I’ll ask my parents but I’m sure they’ll be happy to have you over. Rodrigo and I were by ourselves last year and it sucked, I can’t let you experience that..!”. Bless her little heart… She’s a really sweet girl and oh how much am I going to miss her smile and our girly chats

 

So we spent Christmas Eve with Marina and her family who are from Brazil, so not only did we learn a little bit about their culture but also got to experience the delicious food. They made this really yummy roast ham, rice with turkey and cheese, eggplants, and potato salads. We had loads of fun especially playing the Secret Santa game after dinner “with the slight twist”. Unlike the traditional Secret Santa rules, we were allowed to steal another person’s gift to put it in a nutshell. I think we laughed a little too hard when we saw the facial expression after a gift was stolen from someone… It was definitely the season to be jolly!