Christmas food, presents and links 2024

Hope you had a Merry Christmas.  The presents have been opened, the kitchen is filled with leftovers and our energy is at low ebb.  We have entered that twilight period when there are a few days of peace and quiet to catch up on everything we haven't got around to do this year.  So I am taking time to catch up on some festive foods, presents and interesting links.  

Firstly, one of Sylvia's beautiful home made cards (above).  I love how the collage makes Melbourne's iconic Flinders Street Station's dome into a plum pudding!

This gingerbread crookie from Bola Bake cafe in Airport West.  This festive bake was a croissant with gingerbread cookie dough baked inside and on top, plus the garnish of a little gingerbread man.  It was amazing shared between three.  Sylvia was less keen on the inside cookie dough but E and I loved it.

Coles supermarket has had some really fun specials for Christmas this year.  We are yet to try the green and white potato gnocchi in festive shapes.  We loved the reindeer bao buns with well seasoned mushroom filling.  The fig, cheddar and parmesan star bites were wonderful when crispy and hot from the oven and stuffed into sandwiches with lots of lettuce and tomato and mayo.  The minions ugly jumper tree decoration was very cute.  The Spiced rum and fig ice cream was ok but we much preferred the Burnt butter pecans and caramel ice cream.  I have been loving the Pavlova flavoured kombucha and Sylvia loved the white chocolate flavoured custard. 

The Chocolate covered gingerbread shapes and the Mince pie flavour milk chocolate were both delicious.  I was less excited about the Cherry and coconut dark chocolate was not quite as good.  Cherry is a difficult flavour to get right.  I also loved the Coles Apricot & peach pies.  If there are going to be any alternative to mince pies, they stone fruit pies are it!

To celebrate Sylvia's end of school this year, we went to Lune in Fitzroy and had an Eggnog cruffin and a Chocolate peppermint croissant from their festive specials.  They are such amazing bakers.

We had great fun at the German Christmas Market in East Melbourne.  Sylvia made a beeline for these tiny gingerbread houses.  So gorgeous.

Luthers Scoops in Brunswick is Sylvia's favourite ice cream shop.  We went there for festive specials a few days before Christmas on the night we went out to see the local Christmas lights.  It was a 20 minute wait because it was so popular.  As you can see in the above photo, the queue extended over twice the width of the shop front.

The queue at Luthers was worth the wait.  I had the Mince pie ice cream and the Pavlova ice cream, while Sylvia had the Pavlova with the Watermelon and strawberry sorbet.  We were very happy with our purchases.  The mince pie ice cream was lovely with actual mince pies from nearby Oven Street Bakery crumbled throughout and a hint of alcohol.  The pavlova ice cream was described as "an extra-creamy vanilla base with loads of crunchy marshmallow-y pavlova pieces, with tangy kiwifruit and strawberry ripples".  It was wonderful.  We didn't get a chance to try the festive marzipan or speculaas ice creams.

The Grinch (2018) is Sylvia's favourite Christmas film.  And every Christmas she likes to have a Krispy Kreme seasonal doughnut.  She was very excited when Krispy Kreme had a Grinch range of doughnuts this year.  Of course we tried the green Grinch face doughnut with "coal" cookies and cream filling and the Grinchy Claus doughnut topped with chocolate ganache, white buttercream and an edible icing Grinchy Claus.

On Christmas Eve we had a busy day of cooking.  I made panforte, nut roast and cranberry nut rolls that I make each Christmas.  Sylvia made fantastic mac and cheese (you  an see her big bowl of cheese, a tub of chopped cauliflower and the fried leek for it above) and marinated tofu (not pictured) to bake the next day for her Christmas dinner.  We also had a big bowlful of our fave Pearl couscous, cucumber and feta salad to eat for dinner while watching the Carols by Candlelight on tv.  It was so good after a baking day and so good with Christmas leftovers.

Christmas morning was our usual cranberry nut rolls with Swiss cheese and juice.  I didn't buy cranberry sauce this year because I get tired of trying to use up the leftovers but I did have a bowl of cherries on the table.  Mmmmm .... cherries!  Sylvia had vegemite on toast because she is not so keen on the rolls.  We just had little bits of juice to use up so I half filled a glass with water drained from soaking the cranberries, the juice of the orange needed for the panforte and some apricot nectar from the back of the fridge.  I topped it up with sparkling water and really enjoyed it.

Then I set off for my parents house.  The traffic was crazy and when I arrived I found I had forgotten the nut roast and the presents for my extended family.  (It has been a busy tiring festive season).  Fortunately I had lots of yummy cheese from the cheeseboards that my mother put out to nibble on while we waited.

The cheese together with all the vegies: roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, roast carrots, boiled peas and cauliflower cheese were very satisfying.  Kudos to my aunt, Liz who made amazing vegetarian gravy.  I was sad not to be able to have it with my nut roast but I was quite satisfied with my dinner.

My mum made a impressive Christmas dinner for 20 family members including in-laws, grandchildren and grandchildren's partners.  This is the dinner table after we've served ourselves and pulled the crackers.  Looking around the table you can see that there is always someone who doesn't pull their cracker, finishes early or doesn't even sit in their place that is set for them.

The dinner was followed by a selection of desserts: plum pudding with custard, pavlova with peppermint crisp, chocolate caramel slice, Toblerone cheesecake, and chocolate peanut butter pudding.  My sister Fran took this lovely picture of the pavlova.

After lunch I had a drive with my brother Paul to the beach at Torquay.  It was so nice to have a dip in the waves but we both had to get back to my parents before heading off again.

When I got home in Melbourne, I had leftovers from Sylvia's Christmas dinner.  Here is her photo of her Christmas dinner at 4pm.  She had the mac and cheese and marinated tofu with roast potatoes, roast carrots and peas.  It was an impressive offering from a 15 year old and her dad enjoyed sharing it with her.

Here are some of our presents.  Lots of lovely one including chocolates, an espresso candle, a snail plant holder and a packet of fiver types of Oreos.  As well as these, there are tickets and money that will be very appreciated.

Here is a close up of some of the little and tiny gifts.  The mushrooms, the little house, the Bluey earrings and the tiny kitchen magnets are so cute.

We have been enjoying a very quiet Boxing Day.  The aircon has been on all day with the mercury reaching 37 C today.  I have a couple of weeks leave from work so I am determined to fit in doing nothing among all the rest that I want to catch up on.  But before I go I will share some festive weblinks and wish you a Merry Christmas and happy new year.

Christmas quicklinks:

The birth of Jesus would probably have been forgotten – if it wasn’t for a plague, in The Guardian, 25 December 2025.

Santa's secret sorrow: the [naughty] list gets longer every year, cartoon by Fiona Katauskas in The Guardian, 21 December 2024.

Glasshouse gingerbread house by Not Quite Nigella, 16 December 2024.

There’s a lot to hate in Love Actually. But it’s also the ultimate Christmas fantasy, in the Guardian, 8 December 2019.

Cyclone Tracy: a force of nature: reflections on the 50th anniversary in the ABC website, 23 December 2024. 

Cheesy gratin and garlicky fried rice: Yottam Ottolenghi's recipes for Christmas leftovers in The Guardian, 21 December 2024.

Boxing Day tsunami: Forensic investigator reflects on disaster 20 years on, in news.com.au, 26 December 2024.

Christmas lights and sights in Melbourne 2024

The weeks leading up to Christmas have been crazy busy this year.  We had three nights in a row of getting home after 11am (film, city lights and local lights)!  So many opportunities for festive photos.  Here are a select few.  For a start, I loved the above blow up Christmas decorations in Barrow St, Coburg.  So cute.

This is the Christmas display at Present Story, a great gift shop on Nicholson Street in Coburg.  It is a fun Christmas beach scene with signs to different cities around the world and a tree.  It does not include the blow up pink flamingos that were part of a Christmas beach photo opportunity in an office I work at once a week.

This is another fun part of the staff area dedicated to Christmas at the same office.  This one was Santa's workshop with lots of fun elf parody's of the office such as charts, diagrams and feedback.  The signs outside this area pointed to "reindeer parking", "wish list processing" and "sleigh loading" and one sign saying "elves at work: hats with bells must be worn in this area".  I was told it was a fundraiser.

I did a festive diorama workshop with Sylvia.  She was quick to find all the cute houses and to finish her diorama by the end of the workshop.  Mine hung around unfinished at home for a week or two and did not look this good!

This was the Victoria St Mall in Coburg when it was festive with a Christmas tree, bows on trees and a photo op with the three elves.  After the Coburg Night Market we were sad to see the Christmas tree bent over and the gum trees stripped of their bows.  Since then I have seen that the tree and elves have gone but the bows were recently returned.  Why would anyone do this!

We loved the German Christmas Market at the German Lutheran Church in East Melbourne last year.  This year we returned with my parents.  It is only a small market but has some nice gifts and crafts, plus the opportunity to have summer gluhwein.

I love a bit of Bluey on the local streets.  This fence in West Brunswick with the Bluey characters at Christmas is gorgeous.

This year bows are everywhere even on fences like on this gorgeous terrace house with elegant decorations.

I had lunch at Nikos in Fairfield (more on the food later) and loved their festive decorations.

These beautiful wreaths in Fairfield (outside Nikos) are made my creative friend Kerin.  She took old signs that a friend took down and cut them in to ribbons to tie on a wire circle to make the wreaths, then she spray painted them and added some baubles.  So great to see sustainable Christmas decorations on the streets!

When we were in Geelong to help my parents put up their tree, my mum served us jelly slice and hedgehog.  You can see my parents' sideboard that used to sit in my grandparents' house.  It has a wreath and candles in the middle surrounded by Christmas cards.  I seem to get less and less cards every year and send less and less.  It makes me sad but it is down my list of priorities for Christmas.  My dad wanted a slightly different configuration but he knows how to pick his battles!

I really loved this idea to "Fill your own Advent Calendar" from Myer.  It was not cheap to fill it with lots of fancy chocolates, socks and littleso we did not purchase one but the painting of the Bourke Street Myer building on the box fills me with delight.  It is such an iconic building and department store in Melbourne.  They have downsized but I am glad they continue to hang in there.  There was a lot less "giftorium" this year but we saw some beautiful decorations.

Every year we love to see the Myer Christmas windows.  They often promote a book with great detailed displays.  Last year the Bluey Christmas Windows were amazing.  This year they featured the Australia Zoo that was founded by Steve Irwin and still run by his kids Bindi and Robert.  We did not bother queuing as the displays did not spark joy or feel at all festive.  Though judging by the queues, there were plenty of people keen to wait in a long line to see it.  But we enjoyed a night time walk to see the festive lights of the city.

I preferred that H&M display of Santa on a sleigh pulled by kangaroos.  The magnificent building used to be the GPO so it is nice to see it sporting some festive cheer.

Even better than the former GPO was the Town Hall which had colourful festive images projected onto the building's portico and columns.  This image make the town hall look very candy cane with little images of Melbourne icons such as trams and the Arts Centre spire. 

Other images that were rotating on the Town Hall projects included beach scenes and native animals wearing paper crowns from Christmas crackers.  Many included native flowers but others, like the above images seemed abstract and yet very festive and cheerful.

We wandered through Fed Square and chanced upon a festive queer cabaret called As camp as Christmas.  This was unexpected but it was one of Sylvia's favourite sights of the night.  We especially loved Dave the Pudding!

Then we walked across the Swanston Street bridge and along South Bank where the restaurants were doing great business.  Lots of people getting together before Christmas.  (Which sounds nice until I spoke to my neighbour who had had covid in her family this year for the third Christmas in a row!  That is enough to turn me off big Christmas parties!).  We enjoyed gazing out upon Christmas lights lighting up the Evan Walker pedestrian bridge over the Yarra River and Flinders Street Station.

Sylvia had her heart set upon seeing the Crown Casino's river show that could be seen ever 15 minutes but only if you beat the crowds at the waters edge.  I had set my expectations too high and was not impressed by the rotating coloured lights on the water spouts accompanied by carols, especially as I am too short to see over all the people in front of me.  So instead of a photo from the river, I am sharing this photo of some of the festive lights on the river bank that I enjoyed more. 

Then it was time to go home by train.  One of my favourite sights of the night was Flinders Street Station with lights projecting on it to make it look like  it was made out of gingerbread.  It looked like we could reach out and break off a piece of the building to eat.  If only...

I could not believe that one of our favourite local houses with an amazing Christmas light display was featured in The Age newspaper a day before we set out to the see the local lights.  We love the place in Shaftsbury Street, Coburg enough to queue up for 30 minutes so we could walk in their wintery wonderland.  They even had a snow machine!

We also visited this this wonderfully decorated Molesworth St house  in Coburg that has snowmen in the front yard, santa on a see saw and santa and a penguin riding a polar bear!  It is another favourite Christmas light display.

We also went to an amazing house in Evell St, Glenroy that Sylvia had spotted online.  The exterior had some really nice festive lights but it was the displays in the couple's garage that were really special.  There was lots of whimsy: lots of vintage lit up santas, a giant lit up kiwi bird, and frogs reading to each other. The masterpiece was the intricate diorama of Bethlehem.  It was so much detail that it was hard to know where to look.

You can see the manger scene in this close up photo.  The man who made it was dressed as santa and loved having people come and see his creation.  His wife told us that he spends a lot of time in the garage working on it all year round!  What an amazing project!

Finally here are a few more details from the local Christmas lights: a dancing kangaroo, snowmen balancing on each other, santa climbing a rope ladder and a giraffe.  So much fun and whimsy to enjoy.  And that is Christmas all over.  So much to love!

Coburg Night Market 2024

One of our favourite Christmas traditions is a balmy night enjoying great food and gorgeous gift purchases at the Coburg Night Market.  The leafy Bridges Reserve is a great location to stroll among food trucks and craft stalls.  The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly with lots of locals chilling on the lawns eating dinner while bands play on the stage.

We had a peak Christmas weekend this past Friday to Sunday.  We met my friend Jo at the Coburg Night Market, decorated our own Christmas tree, helped put up my parents' tree, checked out the Geelong Christmas tree, went gift shopping, and had lunch with Kerin in Fairfield where I admired the sustainable Christmas wreaths she made for the streetscape.  To really get in the spirit of Christmas, I had a crazy parking adventure in a shopping centre where I joined all the cars circling like sharks for the prize of a vacant parking space.  I got so confused by a fruitless search for a parking spot that I found myself unexpectedly at the exit and was mortified to accidentally drive straight through the boom gate in front of a crowd of amused Christmas shoppers.

Back to the night market.  I went there twice with Sylvia and she also went another two times with her dad.  On our first visit we arrived just before 5pm on Friday night just as the market was opening.  There were not many people there and the stalls were well stocked.  So much good stuff to browse.  I just wish I had the money to buy it all.  These Fiona Howes Ceramics green pottery plates above were just the look I would love in my kitchen.

These colourful wee mushroom houses were so gorgeous but not cheap at $35 a house.  It seemed that the prices were quite steep this year but the quality was fantastic.  A friend commented that this is the true price of buying crafts that are made locally.  saskia lola

I really loved these beautiful tea towels from Elvedee.  You can see lots of local scenery: from left to right the pictures were Flinders Street Station, Hosier Lane street art, Dr Who as a cat outside the tardis, Coburg icons and on the edge of the last tea towel you can glimpse some Brunswick places.

This is a close up of the Coburg tea towel.  It has lots of place that I am fond of: the imposing Victorian front gate of Pentridge Wild Timor Cafe, the Bluestone Cottage on Bell Street, Bin Chicken Island, Half Moon Cafe, and the Post Office Hotel.

We smelled many beautifully scented candles.  I really loved the gingerbread candles at the Leaf and Candle Co stall.  They are made in old tins with gorgeous new labels and amazing aromas.  (Last year Sylvia got a jam and cream candle that smelled so good.)

The Nonsense Maker had such wonderful whimsical images of tiny folk hanging out on iconic Aussie foods: iced vovo biscuits, gaytime ice creams, fairy bread, snag in bread, lamingtons, meat pies.  As well as these fridge magnets, they had tea towels, greeting cards and calendars.

We were ready for the Sylvia enjoyed a cup of "the lot" juice: orange mango pineapple passion fruit apple from Jeddo's Juice.

Choosing where to buy dinner was a tyranny of choice.  So. Much. Good. Food!  I chose Nohadra's Kitchen which does vegan Iraqi food.  I had Kuba Haleb (rice balls stuffed with mushroom) at last year's market and it was amazingly crisp outside and tasty inside.  My Kuba Haleb came with salad and tahini sauce.  I could have had more of everything.  An excellent choice.

Meanwhile Sylvia made a beeline for Oh Boy It's a Food Truck.  It is one of her favourite food trucks.  Walking around the food trucks so early meant that we bought food because the queues. 

As we waited we saw this giant old lady puppet.  Sylvia thought she was frighteningly weird.  I thought she looked familiar and was racking my brains to work out where I had seen her before.  When I sorted my photos I saw she is the character on the Coburg tea towel

Here is her crispy mac and cheese croquettes in a roll with cheese sauce and jalapenos.  Oh Boy It's a Food Truck food always makes her very happy!

The Sylvia got a temporary henna tattoo from Alisa Parveen stall.  It was amazing to watch the skill of piping the henna in beautiful swirls onto her hand in minutes.  It took about 20-30 minutes to dry and then gradually flaked off and developed into a deep colour.  Sylvia is hoping it is still there on Christmas day.  She loved it so much that she returned the next day and got another tattoo when visiting the market with her dad.

She had two visits to the night market on Saturday.  One at lunchtime and one in the evening.  By the time we arrived on Saturday evening, lots of people had contributed artwork to this "People of Merribek" canvas.  There were a few workshops like collage and printing on bunting offered at the night market.  I would have loved to have been part of them if we had time (and if the bunting workshop was not just for kids up to the age of 12). 

When I had visited the previous evening, I had liked the look of a woman's falafel so much I checked where it was from.  This was my Saturday night choice.  The falafels from Falafella were excellent and so was the hummus.  You can see how crispy the falafels were and the hummus was really good stuff with a bit of texture and lots of flavour.  They came with lots of leafy salad and some red capsicum slices.

Sylvia wanted to eat from Umma's Gozleme staff.  While my falafel came pretty quickly, there was a long queue for the gozleme.  It gave us time to watch the rolling and folding the gozleme by staff who looked like they are more at home in their own kitchen cooking for their families than at a popular market cooking for hipsters.

While we waited I shared some falafel with Sylvia because I had decided to have a gozleme.  Sylvia got a spinach and feta gozleme and I had a potato feta and onion one.  We took them to the lawn to sit with Jo and family.  The gozleme was delicious and it was lovely to sit and chat with Jo.  Meanwhile Sylvia went off for an orange and mango slushy.

Then we had a walk around the craft stalls to browse and buy the occasional Christmas gift.  There was a lot of smelling candles, admiring cute earrings, laughing at clever festive cards.

Top row: Cuddle the Cat, Ezo Kurashi, Better World Art Christmas decorations,
Middle row: Mana Dreaming, Zedstar Rocks, Kujoberry,
Bottom Row: Apricot Haus, by MHJ, Able and Game.

 

Then Sylvia and I stayed after Jo left because we wanted to see the lights in the dark.  We got ice creams from Billy Van Creamy.  We both got vegan offerings: Sylvia had strawberry sorbet and I had the chocolate and peppermint.

We took our ice creams to lawn by the First Nations stage and listened to music and watched the crowd.  I wasn't sure if this dancer was part of the act or just a passionate onlooker.  It was mesmerizing to watch her under the glow of the setting sun.

Then we wandered around the market to look at all the lights colouring the trees.  Everything looks fun in coloured lights.

When we walked along past the food stalls as they were starting to light up.  Here is the strip of Umma's Gozleme, Falafellas and Nohadra's Kitchen all together where I had excellent food from each stall.  There were lots more tempting food I wished I could have tried.   Some of the food reluctantly bypassed were Donde Mama's Carimañola (Cassava filled with cheese), Salchicha De Verduras (seitan and leek based sausage with smoked paprika, cumin, tumeric tximiturri salsa, vegan aioli) and Hot Twist's Chocolate cheese corn cake.

It was quite impressive how many vegan meals were available in the North East corner of the market.  Another vegan offering I would have loved to have tried were the savoury vegan pastries at the above Yay Foods.  The food truck was bright pink but you can't see the colour so well in the night photo.  The dark made the pretty lights and flowers framing the windows look gorgeous.  I only got as far as test tasting their vegan feta (tofu and coconut oil).  E loved their vegan sausage rolls for lunch on Saturday and dinner on Sunday with Sylvia.  I would have loved to have tried their vegan spinach and feta triangles, spag bol and bechamel pie, and creamy mushroom pie.

Another amazing vegan place was the Elder Roots stall.  They offered lots of interesting mushroom meals: Shiitake Mushroom Banh Mi, Lions Mane Souvlaki, and Myco Magic Rice.  On one sign the magic rice included crunchy tempeh.  I was sad to hear that they weren't doing tempeh at this market.  But I understand that the way to do food trucking is to pare back the menu to one that is manageable in a small space.  This was also the only place I saw with kombucha.  I love the Good Brew kombucha that was on offer but I had to make hard decisions about what to buy!

We could not resist the Finger Licking Enoki Wings: fried enoki wings battered in nori, paprika, marinaded in Korean styled gochan sweet chilli, garlic soy sauce, pickles, mango chilli sauce and mayo dipping sauce.  We were pretty full by then so were glad to get a half serve at $8 rather than the full serve at $15.  It was amazing with really crunchy batter, though I could have done with a little less sauce (which is a preference but I know many people like a lot more sauce than me.)

We were pretty tired at the end of the night but delighted at how gorgeous the lights looked in the dark.  On our walk home we felt good, until we saw that someone had cut the decorative festive bows from the Victoria Street mall and bent the Christmas tree.  That was sad.  We came home to see the Christmas tree we had put up and were relaxing on the sofa when we heard a loud crash.  Some guy had crashed a stolen car into my neighbour's car and the next door brick fence.  It was an evening of high emotions!

But the next day we had more Christmassing today and soldiered on!  We drove down to help my parents put up their Christmas tree and then when we got home, Sylvia went to the night market for her fourth and final time for this year.  She had these crepes with strawberries and cream.  (I can't believe she asked that they swapped out the nutella for whipped cream!!!)  It looks like a fitting end to a big weekend.

Read previous posts about my visits to the Coburg Night Market in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019,  2022 and 2023.

Coburg Night Market
Bridges Rd Reserve
Friday 13 Dec - Sunday 15 Dec 2024
www.facebook.com/coburgnightmarket