Utes, Rainy Days and A Very Rich Cake

We are well into Christmas Party Season here at The Farm.  Before I got married and moved to the country, December consisted of high heels, marquees and way too much champagne. The social whirl that is Christmas Party Season on The Farm is no less taxing.

We kicked off last week with Farmgirl's child care Christmas Party.  It ticked all the boxes.  There were things like red sausages and cupcakes.  Santa came and everyone got a bag of lollies.

Santa arrived in our local fire ute.

Practical Transport For Santa

(For those readers who are not Australian, what we call a "ute" is usually called a "pick up".  In Australia a "pick up" is what a single young farmer is trying to achieve when he heads to the pub on a Friday night.)

A ute is an excellent transport choice for Santa.  Practical, all terrain and reliable.  I know from personal experience that you can do lots of kilometres in a Landcruiser Ute, no worries at all. This a great feature if you are planning an around the world trip.   A good ute is also a comfy choice.  They even make ones with air con, which would be a handy extra if you were wearing a red, fur lined suit.

We have several more parties to come, including The Official Farm Christmas Dinner for all our staff.  It will be held at a local restaurant.  Then we will have my work party.  Same restaurant. (It is only a little town...)

Our harvest is held up at the moment by the weather. There was a cool change and it rained yesterday  It was a glass of red wine rain. When our crop is wet it can't be harvested.  Today has dawned bright and clear however, so hopefully things will dry up quickly.

Fortunately the rain doesn't look to have done any damage.  Many farms in NSW and Victoria have lost their entire crop to rain.  This is a so sad.  It is awful to get your crop so far into the season and then lose it (and any chance of a profit) right at the end.

A Soggy Fence Post, On Our Currently Soggy Farm

Farmgirl and I have been holed up in The Farmhouse so we don't get wet.  To fill in time we made Ree Drummond's Chocolate Sheet Cake.  It turned out beautifully.  I wimped out on the icing though.  I thought it would already be very rich.  So I just dusted the top with icing sugar.  Sorry Ree, I just couldn't do that much butter.  It was still amazing though.  I would recommend making this cake - let me know how the icing goes if you do.

Ree Drummond's Sheet Cake, Minus Icing

It would be super yummy as a pudding if you just warmed it up, added some icecream and some berry coulis.

Enjoy your day everyone.

Santa Does Exist Farmboy, He Does!

Regular readers of this blog will know how excited I am about this Christmas. The main source of this excitement has been The Farmchildren and the magic of their anticipation and strong belief in Santa.

Santa Will Definitely Fill One of These

A major spanner was thrown in the works yesterday evening.  We were sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner.  Farmboy looked at me with sad blue eyes and said

"Someone at school told me that Santa isn't real and it is just your Mum and Dad who buy the presents"

Farmboy is not yet six.  I quashed my immediate reaction, which was to throttle the child who burst Farmboy's bubble, on the basis of the fact that

1. Said child is only five and I can't throttle other peoples children.
2. It is technically true (but only technically).
3. Said child had probably been told the same fact by a horrible big kid and was just sharing the devastation.

I very quickly moved on to reassuring Farmboy that this was a big lie and of course Santa exists.  Fortunately Farmgirl's belief is so unquestionable that she helped me in this reassurance as opposed to asking awkward questions.

Farmboy is very sensitive and quite smart so I came up with the following examples of very scientific, empirical evidence in favour of Santa's existence.

1. People have proven photographic proof of Santa.  This is a lot more than can be said about things like the Loch Ness Monster and UFOs and lots of people still believe in those.

2.  Lots of songs have been written about Santa.  These have been sung by very well known and famous people like Elvis, Bing Crosby and The Wiggles.  People of this calibre would not have put their reputations on the line by singing about a fake Santa.

3.  Who else would fill the stockings?  It is a well known fact that Mummy is very tired and may even have had a few champagnes by Christmas Eve which means that she would surely forget.  Like she forgets things like library day at school.  And swimming lesson day.  And lunch order day.

4.  People have written beautiful stories about Santa - "The Night Before Christmas" is all about Santa and it is one of Mummy's favorite stories.  Mummy is very smart and pretty and would not like stories about pretend people.

5. We all have beautiful, magical imaginations and so Santa exists.  Grown ups like Mummy, Daddy, Granny, Grandpa, Nanny, Boppy and numerous Uncles and Aunts all have such imaginations and all believe in Santa.

6.  If you don't believe in Santa he doesn't come.

Fotunately Farmboy was more than happy with the above facts and was well reassured about Santa's existence.  Crisis averted.

It did make me realise though that my beautiful babies are growing up.  And I am not always going to be able to protect them from the unpalatable truths about life.  There are always going to be things that will happen to them that I can't fix.  The best I will be able to do is comfort and love.  Hopefully it will be enough.