Xmas and New Years activities at Mawson (part 3 of 4)
Friday 14th January 2000

... continued

After Santa had given out all the presents, we headed down to the restaurant to start on Gerbil's feast that he had prepared. It included prawns served with fresh lettuce grown in our Hydroponics greenhouse, crayfish, roast pig and vegetables along with a vast array of side dishes. A professional Christmas menu had also been prepared to celebrate the occasion.	The Mawson 1999 Christmas menu.
Gerbils creations - with his gingerbread house and gingerbread men.	Gerbil posing with the Crayfish (center) cooled by ice fresh from a glacier and prawns (outside) in fresh lettuce.
After we I had finished taking a lot of photos of the food, we all sat down and began the Christmas dinner proper!	The pig..
And as most Christmas afternoon / Boxing day's go - things were very quiet as everybody recovered from the festive season. A few things that I found different about this Christmas was the complete lack of the commercialisation of Christmas - everybody found much more joy in making simple gifts for others and especially when they would probably not receive any direct thanks from the recipient. The chef had saved up the best food for this one day, and it showed.	Sitting down to Christmas dinner - Mawson style

Even though we were all able to eat food at a level which would normally be expected back home, we all knew that how special the day just by seeing what was in front of us. The other side of Christmas was the toast to the absent friends - loved ones and relatives back in Australia.

For all of the 1999 Winterers this was the second Christmas that they had experienced in Antarctica. For me this was the first of probably 2 Christmases, but for my 2000 wintering colleagues who were celebrating Christmas on the Aurora Australis - they would probably miss out on the celebration of Christmas at Mawson because they are scheduled to depart just before Christmas day 2000.

Email continues in part 4