Christmas Day in QLD, Australia

Having a very large blended family (9 children) consisting of mainly adults means that Christmas day is often missing a few of our children. This year my eldest daughter Sarah & son-in-law Oscar are in Melbourne celebrating with Oscar's extended family. My oldest prodigal son , his fiance and their 2 children (who we have not seen since March... their daughter Annabelle was born only a few days before Christmas).  Michael's 18 year old prodigal daughter was with her partner's family. And his youngest 2 daughters were with their mother.
I wasn't really looking forward to Christmas, especially after finding out only a few days ago that my second grandchild had been born and knowing I may never get to see her.

This Christmas day was celebrated with my youngest 2, Ben & Bec, and Michael's oldest 2, Amy & Tamsyn. It turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable & peaceful day.

I cooked the turkey breasts last night as our hot summer is not really conducive to a hot Christmas lunch. It's been Ben's job to cut the turkey & ham for so many years.

Bec loves creating salads so I was "kicked out of" the kitchen. The potato salad was a joint effort between Bec & me, and the tossed salad was Bec's.

Michael with Amy (23)

Michael & Tamsyn (20)

Lunch was delicious and was followed an hour or so later by my Mum's amazing Christmas pudding. I usually make Brandy cream to accompany it but, due to being sick all week, I opted for a pre-made Pauls Brandy custard (which was rather disappointing).

After lunch, we exchanged gifts. Michael surprised me with a Canon 50mm Portrait lens and so I embarked on doing something I had only done a couple of times - switching to manual mode and experimenting with adjusting aperture, shutter speed & ISO.

Here are the results SOOC. I was amazed at the sharpness of the images and quite happy with the results but I still have so much to learn.

Youngest son Ben (20)

Youngest daughter Bec (19)

Oldest step-daughter Amy (23)

Step-daughter Tamsyn (20) - love the light in this one

Great friends, Tamsyn & Bec.

Husband Michael

And me

This last image is credited to RAD Photography (Bec) over at Through the lens; RAD Photography

Around 5:30pm, Michael collected his youngest two daughters, Jess & Lizzie, from their mother's house and, when they were back home, I took a family shot (well, with 6 of the 9 children). I had no idea how to alter settings for so many people so on went the 18-55mm lens, set on Auto, with tripod & 10 sec timer.

Today, I am extremely grateful for celebrations with family

Linking with SOOC Sunday &