Friends-turned-foes Billy Brownless and Garry Lyon celebrate Christmas together

Five years after their friendship came to a fiery end, Billy Brownless and Garry Lyon have come together for a family Christmas lunch.

Footy’s odd couple Garry Lyon and Billy Brownless have toasted Christmas together.

Lyon and his partner Nicky Brownless, the ex-wife of his former best mate and Footy Show co-star Billy Brownless, hosted Christmas lunch at their rural retreat in Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula for the Brownless family and friends.

A video posted on social media shows Lyon, a Melbourne football club great, in full gracious host mode bringing a bottle of wine to the festive table where Billy Brownless is seated along with his sons Oscar and Max and daughters Lucy and Ruby and Ruby’s partner Josh Wallis. Also at the table is Nicky’s mother Jan Smith.

Other images show Nicky and her daughter Ruby putting the finishing touches on the shared feast and the Brownless family enjoying drinks among the trees and logs of the rustic property.

The Christmas coming together is not the first time Billy and Lyon have broken bread since their friendship came to a spectacular and very public end in 2016 after Billy discovered Lyon was dating his ex-wife Nicky.

Garry Lyon brings wine to the table for Christmas lunch at his Red Hill property as Billy Brownless looks on.

Ruby, Billy, Oscar, Lucy and Max Brownless at Christmas lunch at the property Nicky Brownless shares with Garry Lyon in Red Hill in December 2021.

Both men’s marriages had ended before Nicky and Lyon announced they were a couple, but Billy still was left stunned and publicly wounded.

Time clearly mends all wounds and the pair’s Christmas 2021 good cheer comes after they came together in December 2020 to celebrate Christmas as a supportive blended family group.

Photos of that family get-together sent social media into a spin with punters hailing Billy for being a “great bloke.”

Lucy Brownless described the Christmas 2021 gathering as “a special day with very special people” on her social media.

In September 2020 Billy spoke about the slowly mending rift between himself and Lyon on Sam Newman’s You Cannot Be Serious podcast.

“It’s been four or five years, I’ve come around and everyone is in a good spot to be honest. Garry and Nicky are — that’s fine — and the kids are (too),” he told Newman adding there was still work to do on his relationship with Lyon.

“There’s no Christmas cards yet but we have spoken a couple of times,” he said.

“There’s no problems, we’re in a good space, he’s in a good space, Nicky is, the kids are and so am I. But that’s taken time. It has.”