From December 23 2008:

Holiday greetings from the Budwegs (brief)

Merry Christmas friends and family!

We hope you are all having a very Merry Christmas. We are in the
Queenscliff area south of Melbourne, Australia.

Our Christmas celebration in Aussieland will not be the traditional
Midwest one that we are used to. This year's celebration will
include:
...temps in the 90-100+ F.
...barbecueing on the beach
...seeing Santa in a bikini
...having pasta/fruit salad with grilled kangaroo/steak/salmon for
Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner
...then sailboat races on Boxing Day

On your calendars you may notice that Dec. 26 is Boxing Day. You
probably never knew what it meant. Well, the history (that we were
told) is that they used to take all the extra food and things from
Christmas and box them up to give to the poor. Currently, it is
used more as an extension of the Christmas holiday and includes a
gathering where you eat up your leftovers and recover from the 1-2
days before (or continue the celebration).

We are thinking about going to Tasmania after Christmas to explore
the island and to possibly pick fruit.

We will have our Christmas greeting and Christmas photos posted on
our blog immediately following Boxing Day.

Pictures of Bolivia, Ecuador, Columbia, the time in the US, and New
Zealand have all been posted in the photo gallery of our website.
Thanks Kay for being so diligent about getting them the photos
posted before Christmas.

Santa came early for Ward and I and brought us a laptop computer. I
guess we were really good! He must have known that we really needed
this because our memory sticks were getting infected by using
various computers in the internet cafes resulting in many lost
photos. This will also help us to be more prompt in posting photos
in the future.

Merry Christmas everyone!

God Bless,
Jacky and Ward