{"id":370978,"date":"2025-12-25T13:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/370978\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T13:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:07:10","slug":"lunch-brings-bondi-together-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/370978\/","title":{"rendered":"Lunch brings Bondi together for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Once Mohammad Bhuiyan\u2019s three daughters finish their food at Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club\u2019s annual charity Christmas Day lunch, it\u2019s onto the presents. The giggles of eight-year-old twins Fiona and Febina, and their younger sister, Farhina, 4, fill the room.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a happy return to the club for the girls. Less than a fortnight ago, the Bhuiyans were enjoying a Sunday afternoon at the playground below when bullets began raining onto a nearby Hanukkah event.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"From left: Febina, Farhina and Fiona Bhuiyan at Christmas Day lunch at the Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/dd0cca449fe7fd0caa438162a624dd0e9033e2d8.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>From left: Febina, Farhina and Fiona Bhuiyan at Christmas Day lunch at the Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club.Credit: Janie Barrett<\/p>\n<p>Bhuiyan\u2019s wife fell over and was seriously injured in the chaos.<\/p>\n<p>The tragedy has rocked the Bangladeshi family, but they were still determined to enjoy Christmas at the surf club, where they have spent December 25 for the past four years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe come here every year, and we really enjoy it. We don\u2019t miss it,\u201d Mohammad said. \u201cMy daughters love coming here, and they love their gift bags. That\u2019s the reason I brought them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Volunteers handing out food at the Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club\u2019s Christmas lunch. \" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/a244ebe7362f6dbd25e2082612455a60c8247a90.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Volunteers handing out food at the Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club\u2019s Christmas lunch. Credit: Janie Barrett<\/p>\n<p>The lunch\u2019s organiser, lifesaver Sebastian Cassie, nearly cancelled this year\u2019s meal due to concerns it was too soon after the events of December 14, in which 15 people were shot dead.<\/p>\n<p>Cassie, who was a first responder at the shooting, said he asked a local rabbi for advice about planning the lunch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir words of encouragement and wisdom were: \u2018No, you put it on.\u2019 In the Jewish community, how they communicated it to me was that you overcome tragedy and darkness by putting on things that bring light, joy and community service,\u201d Cassie said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once Mohammad Bhuiyan\u2019s three daughters finish their food at Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club\u2019s annual charity Christmas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-370978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}