A Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Everyone!! I hope 2016 has started off well for you all!! I don’t have a 2015 wrap up post for you this year as it was a little light on in terms of blogging posts published on here, but I do have a photo heavy Christmas/New Year post to kick 2016 off right!
Due to the arrival of some lovely rain and the way the public holidays fell this year (which affects our transport/market arrival timing for the mangoes) we were lucky enough to sneak away from the farm mid mango season to celebrate Christmas with all the Johnson/Fealy clan this year up at Ben Avon Station!
We are very fortunate to have two very big, very wonderful extended families on both my side and Matt’s side of the family, so each year for the festive season we spend Christmas Day with one family and Boxing Day with the other. There are heaps of cousins around the same age as our kids on both sides which ensures always amazing times for our kiddos!
We kicked off Christmas season with our annual visit to the Atherton Christmas Tree Farm to pick out our Christmas tree and this year we had three visiting Downunder Farmstay students join in the fun with us. It was a scorching hot afternoon when we went to pick our tree – I think the Japanese girls thought our aussie Christmas tradition was a little crazy!
Of course once we had the tree – we had to decorate it!
In early December also was our local Christmas Carols night, which the kids always insist that we head in to – they love dancing and singing along with their friends and of course seeing Santa arrive in his fire engine to throw out lollies to all the good boys and girls! Kipp was not happy about going this year though!
Kipp sooooo happy about Christmas carols night – NOT!!
Then school finished and mango season started and the next few weeks were a blur of gift organising, kid wrangling and mango selling! We did manage to put together our traditional ‘Blue Sky Produce’ teacher’s gifts fruit baskets again and they were very well received 🙂 We also squeezed in our annual Blue Sky Christmas BBQ with all the workers behind the packing shed.
Christmas arrived a few days early when Uncle Ben, Amy, Madi and Jayde made it all the way up here from Brisbane to visit! Nothing like family arriving to get you in the Christmas spirit!!
Fealy Cousies – Xmas 2015
Fun Xmas Dinner just before Christmas at Uncle Jimbo’s with Poppy and Rema
On Christmas Eve, after every thing that could go wrong on the farm, did go wrong (it’s some kind of farming jinx that any time you want to go away anywhere – something will always break down or go wrong on the farm – ALWAYS – ask any farm kid or farmer!) we headed up to Ben Avon Station, arriving in the rain at about 5pm and quickly set up the camper beside the ‘Tomato House” to be our Christmas home for the next few nights. It was so lovely going to bed on Christmas eve hearing the rain on the canvas camper roof – just beautiful and much needed for Ben Avon!
Christmas morning dawned and our kids were up by 5am to see what Santa had left in their stockings for them – lucky kids they are!
The rest of the day was spent opening pressies with all of the family and having a lunch time feast up at the ‘Main House’. A really, really lovely day!
“Dusty” the Ben Avon calf was a real hit at Christmas this year – as was the traditional kids “secret santa’ gift giving! Kipp was super excited to receive his gift from Santa this year!
One of the traditions I really love about Christmas at Ben Avon station is the annual Christmas video which Glynis puts together every year for everyone to watch on Christmas day – awesome way to share some great photos and recap on the year that was while all the family is together! The kids also loved the ‘tight rope’ that made an appearance as a Christmas Day challenge – lots of fun for young and old!
On boxing day we headed to Grammy & Grunda’s in Ravenshoe for a lovely quiet lunch and to listen to the rain tumble down! Only a few of us on my side of the family this year as we had just celebrated my Dad’s 60th a few weeks earlier with a big party, and my sisters time their Christmas trips back home to be in line with the year we spend Christmas Day with the ‘Bell Clan’.
Boxing Day with Grammy and Grunda 2015
After that we had one more day at the Station and boy did we have fun! Jack describes Ben Avon as his ‘paradise’ and it is not hard to see why! Motor bike riding, swimming, swinging, cousins and a zip line this year – soooooo awesome! Uncle Ross spent hours in the boat towing the kids back across the water on the zipline – I’m sure that has to earn him some mustering hours in the years to come! Some more great times for our kids to add to their ‘Ben Avon Christmas’ memory bank which I am sure they will treasure and look back on so fondly in the years to come.
That pretty much sums up Christmas 2015! A huge thank you to Ross and Glynis, and Great Grandma Johnson for all the hard work they did in getting Christmas organised, the setting up, the feeding us all and not to mention letting us all stay and have so much fun at Ben Avon! Very grateful for the wonderful time we had! xoxoxox
New Year’s Eve saw us well and truly back into mango madness which meant a very quiet family evening at home was in order. We made pizza for tea, played UNO and Pictionary, had waffles and ice-cream for dessert and finished off the night at 10pm with sparklers outside – sounds pretty boring but actually was lots of fun and a lovely bit of quality family time! On New Year’s Day – we had a BBQ Breakfast with my mum and dad and then Matt and Grunda spent the day in the tractors mulching and spraying – some much needed catch up maintenance for the orchard, I spent the day doing wages and paperwork, and my Grammy spent the day tackling my mountain of washing in the laundry and looking after the kids – what a way to kick off 2016!!! Grunda did bring a bit of New Year’s Day spirit into the day – insisting on a hit of backyard cricket before tea.
New Year’s Eve 2015 – such a wild night for the Fealy Family 😉
New Year’s Day Back Yard Cricket Match
Now we are already 5 days in to 2016 – I’m thinking this year is going to fly! Did you all have a good Christmas and New Year? What have you got planned for 2016?? Here’s hoping this will be the best year yet for us all!
Love From The Fealy Family xoxoxo
You can read about Christmas’s past below;
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