MERRY CHRISTMAS

It is officially December guys, which means summer sun, bbqs, family gatherings, longer days, school holidays, beautiful weather and the very best part, CHRISTMAS!!!! We love Christmas and want to take this opportunity to wish you all a very safe and happy holiday season...Joanne and I would also like to take this moment to thank you all once again for your fantastic support and encouragement during our first year here at the Homestead. We have gone from having 3 people on all weekend to needing 12 staff in total including Jo and myself. It is you guys, our wonderful regulars and first time customers that we can thank wholly and solely for our success. So thank you for all of the times you came for breakfast or lunch, or chose us to host your Wedding, Christening, Birthday, Engagement or Anniversary. Thank you for every friend or person you recommended us too, for every kind or encouraging word you said about us and our little Café/Function Centre… Joanne, Myself, all of our Staff and families would like to say a resounding VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL! Enjoy your holidays Guys and we look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year. Love Joanne and Tye xxx

STUARTS PICK OF THE MONTH...HIS FAVOURITE EVER CHRISTMAS STORY!

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

By Francis P. Church, first published in The New York Sun in 1897. [See The People’s Almanac, pp. 1358–9.]

Dear Editor - I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus? Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, and no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world, which neither the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

TRADING HOURS

These are our Christmas and New Year Trading Hours for 2007/2008….. SATURDAY DECEMBER 15TH : 10AM TO 4 PM SUNDAY DECEMBER 16TH : CAFÉ OPEN 10 AM TO 4 PM SANTA WILL BE WITH US FROM 11AM TO 3 PM! SATURDAY DECEMBER 22ND : CLOSED SUNDAY DECEMBER 23RD : CLOSED SATURDAY DECEMBER 29TH : CLOSED SUNDAY DECEMBER 30TH : CLOSED GRAND RE OPENING : TRADING AS NORMAL 10 AM TO 4 PM SATURDAY JANUARY 5TH SEEYOU ALL FOR BREAKFAST!!!

TYES USELESS INFORMATION!

1. The Song White Christmas is the biggest selling Christmas single of all-time. 2. Sugar Plums are chocolate candies that are filled with fruit preservatives or other sweet cream fillings. 3. The Christmas Poem The Night Before Christmas written by Clement Moore was originally titled A Visit from St. Nicholas. 4. The Song Jingle Bells was originally titled One Horse Open Sleigh . 5. Did you realize the name Santa Claus is not mentioned once in the popular Christmas poem The Night Before Christmas . 6. Early Christmas trees were decorated with fruits, flowers and candles which were heavy on the tree branches. In the 1800's German glass blowers began producing glass balls to replace the heavy decorations and called then bulbs. 7. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was written and created by Robert May. May was an employee of the department store Montgomery Ward, and created Rudolph for Montgomery Wards who issued coloring books each year to children at their stores for Christmas. 8. The most popular version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949 and sold 2 million copies of the song in one year. 9. Hallmark introduced its first Christmas cards in 1915, five years after the founding of the company. 10. MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!!!!!!

THE LOWDOWN....

Time seems to have flown by as it only can in the last 3 months leading up to the chaos and fun of Christmas activity and here we are in mid November already!

All of us here at the café have been getting back into the swing of ‘wedding season’, with a wedding almost every weekend to keep us busy!

The early warm weather promises that we should have a long warm summer ahead of us, which is perfect for wandering along the beach and around the grounds of the Homestead with the kids and soaking up the summer sun.

Thank you to those who came down and joined in all the festivities of Children's week with us, Jo and I had an amazing day and it was wonderful to see so many Crias attend the day. We certainly hope you had a great time and enjoyed the treasure hunt and looking at the amazing Vintage cars that were here courtesy of Hillmans Car Club.

Jo and I would like to say a huge thanks to Kayla, who helped out on the day on Alpaca Duty, Indiana, who very cheerfully manned the Chook pen point on the Treasure hunt and Gryffin who very politely helped the Book Fairy with the colouring in sheets and the scratch and sniff stickers! We would also like to say a very big thanks to all of the Café staff, Paulo, David and Sharon who manned the café and took care of everyone who went into the café for a bite to eat. Both Jo and I love Christmas and have an exciting Christmas Event in the works to wish all of our customers, regular and new a very Merry Christmas! We promise to keep you updated on this as we iron out the details.

Just a small reminder to you all that as you wander the grounds, please do be on the look out for snakes, we have seen one, it was headed very quickly in the opposite direction to us, but they are on the move and while they are keen to avoid people, we do ask that you watch carefully in the grassier areas. Enjoy the sunshine guys and remember if there is anything we can do for you, just ask!

STUARTS PICK OF THE MONTH....

Stuarts Pick of The Month for November is…”Confessions of and Heiress” by Paris Hilton.

I know, I know, there were those of us who were stunned that young Paris could write a book, I mean seriously, who among us knew she could even read! It was, of course, of no surprise to Stuart that Paris Hilton, heiress to the Hilton fortune, professional party goer and all round bad girl would release a premature autobiography on her fabulously exciting life.

Who wouldn't, given the fact that she is constantly surrounded by B grade celebrities, has a father with more money than god, spends a great deal of her time being photographed without underwear and is renowned, as they say, for going to the opening of an envelope….oh the juicy stories we all hoped she would divulge…

Alas, rather than getting a gossip fest the trashiest tabloids would drool over, we instead were relegated with tips and tricks on how to be the perfect heiress. Of course there are SO many lost little heiresses out there who are just desperate for guidance on how to behave in a manner fit for their station! Perhaps the most helpful bit of advice young Paris espouses in her (complete waste of paper can you believe trees died for this..) book is for aspiring heiresses to “always act like you are wearing an invisible crown, I do and it has always worked for me…” One has to wonder how well that worked for her in prison.

Still at least, being invisible and all the other inmates couldn't steal it from her and maim her with it! (Now there is a book I would love to read)

Stuart was so derangedly bored with this piece of trash he has failed to revive himself enough to even give it a skull rating...

TYE'S USELESS INFORMATION...

TYES USELESS INFORMATION! I SWEAR ITS TRUE…. – 4000 people are injured by teapots every year. – A toothpick is the object most choked on by Americans. – In every deck of cards the King of Hearts is sticking his sword through his head, which is why he is often called the suicide king. – It takes a plastic container 50,000 years to start decomposing. – Kleenex tissues were originally used as filters in gas masks.