An Orphan's Lunch

As I mentioned in my previous post, we were hosting an 'orphan's' lunch for people from church who had no family here in Cairns to spend Christmas with, like us. The day was a huge HIT! Everyone had so much fun and we ate some very delicious food! Here's how the day looked:

We had church in the morning, where we spent our time celebrating the birth of Jesus with great passion.

Little Spring and I came home to get the final preparations done for our big lunch and Big Spring headed up to the Tablelands for a Christmas service at Atherton.

The table was set and ready (actually, it was set and ready on Christmas Eve morning - for those of you who know me, I'm overly organised sometimes!):


So I had plenty of time for finishing touches to the house (cleaning etc) and making Mum's German Potato Salad (a tradition each Christmas) before everyone arrived.

While waiting for Big Spring to get home, we ate plenty of cheese, dips, crackers and other Christmas treats. When Big Spring arrived, the feast started and the 3 couples and 1 single lady who came to join the Springs for Christmas laughed and had a wonderful time and ate until we could barely eat anymore.


At this point we'd only had main course, not dessert, so to give our stomachs time to make room for dessert, we opened our Kris Kringle presents. Always fun!

Then the feast continued... pumpkin pie (made by me!), pecan pie (made by another American!), pavlova, fruit salad, fruit danishes (affectionately nick-named dessert pizzas by the group because that's what they looked like - pizzas!) and my Rudolph buttersnaps.... sooo much food!
Once we let dessert settle, we headed out to the pool for the rest of the afternoon to relax and enjoy the fine weather. Later in the evening, everyone gradually went home. We collapsed on the couch, exhausted, but happy and very satisfied!

We're looking forward to hosting another 'orphan's Christmas next year!

I pray that you and your family/friends had a wonderful, relaxing Christmas.

(Sorry that there weren't more photos, but I was too busy enjoying myself to remember to take photos, except the group ones at the table!)