Since we were off in Italy over Christmas with our adult children, we never had a chance to celebrate with the grandkids. We had this situation arise once before and found that having Christmas around the Summer Solstice was an excellent time to get the family together for some presents and a cookout!

In keeping with the theme I put our Christmas wreath on the door and decorated the back patio a bit and of course had a tree representation with presents nearby.

Christmas decorations

Presents and a faux tree

Once the present opening was done we started in on the Christmas cookout food – hamburgers, bratwurst, a big summer fruit salad, potato salad, and roasted golden beets and blood orange slices with arugula and feta cheese. Later we had some ice cream with our daughter’s intensely strawberry sauce made from wild strawberries in her garden.

Bratwurst and sauerkraut, potatoes salad, good oranges and golden beets

If it were up to me I think the end of June is a fine time for Christmas. The weather is great and the kids haven’t had a bunch of presents for 6 months!