Christmas Eve

Although there are four Sundays in Advent, the fourth one is followed by less than a week - just three days, this year, in the final runup to Christmas. So rather than continuing my Advent posts, this is my annual Christmas Eve one, but continuing the daily updates.

December 21st was the fourth Sunday of Advent, and the church we're connected with had a communion service with carols rather than a more traditional 'nine lessons and carols'. I went to that, and enjoyed it, then chatted to some friends afterwards.

It's been our custom for many years to go out to eat at Alexander's on the last Sunday before Christmas. We got the idea from some friends many years ago. I can't technically say it's a 'tradition' because it wasn't handed down to us by parents or predecessors, but it feels like one. So at 12.30 we drove to the marina and then walked the few hundred metres to Alexander's.

Richard had the stifado, which he said was excellent. I had a mushroom omelette, which looked quite interesting, but wasn't as great as some meals I've had there. Still, it was filling and it's good to try something different. 

In the afternoon, I decided it was time for the almond paste layer on the Christmas cake. I don't personally like marzipan, and the commercial brands have a very strong flavour, and often ultra-processed ingredients such as glucose-fructose syrup. As it's very easy to make at home with a food processor, I use vanilla extract rather than almond extract. The result is (in my opinion) much nicer; even those who like the flavour of marzipan seem to like my version too. 

It's a bit sticky to roll out; I use half of it to make a couple of roughly rectangular strips to go around the cake:

Then the rest goes on top. It's very easy to press roughly into shape, and a layer of almond paste (or marzipan) makes it a lot easier to put royal icing on a few days later, when it's dried out. 

After I had done that, I made some more pastry (I didn't bother to wash out the food processor in between) as I still had half a tub of mincemeat left over from the batch I made last year, even after having made 24 mince pies just over a week ago. 

I used the last of the pastry and a couple of tablespoons of mincemeat to make us a little mincemeat turnover, and there are still a few tablespoons left; hopefully sufficient to make a batch of mincemeat cake some time in the new year. 

On Monday morning I spent at least an hour dealing with finances; I didn't have to pay the internet/phone bill and equivalent of council tax until the end of the month, but wanted them out of the way before Christmas. I also made some bank transfers, and sorted out/checked the last couple of weeks' grocery receipts. 

In the evening we went for a fairly short walk along the sea front and checked the PO Box again. There were two more Christmas cards waiting for us.

Tuesday was quite a rainy day, after thunderstorms overnight. In the afternoon, I did some more Christmas preparation, including making two kinds of vegan 'cheese' for Christmas afternoon. 

Then Christmas Eve. A lot of things have to be done at the last minute. I set out for the local fruitaria around 6.45am to buy potatoes and vegetables for tomorrow, and enough oranges and other fruit to last us until Monday. The shops will be closed Thursday and Friday, and I'd prefer not to have to shop at the weekend.

I remembered to thaw the sausagemeat we had previously bought. 

Around 10.30 Richard went to Metro to collect our turkey, and I made our favourite lemon/mushroom/onion stuffing, after chopping everything in the food processor.

Probably only two of us will eat any on Christmas Day, but it makes a good filling. And it's good to use in - for instance - turkey pie made with leftovers. I know some experts recommend that turkeys should not be stuffed, for a variety of reasons. But we've never had any problems. And since we reheat the carved turkey, it has extra cooking time anyway. 

I loaded the dishwasher - which was almost full anyway, then washed up everything that couldn't go in, and dried it all too, to be out of the way before the turkey was dealt with. 

Richard does the messy part; I still cook and eat some meat, as he likes it so much. But I don't handle raw meat, and stuffing a turkey needs a lot of handling. 

I spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen, too, preparing more things including starting our chocolate trifle for an alternative dessert tomorrow. I used a pack of fruit juice with some agar powder to make the 'jelly' layer; I don't like the fact that packaged jelly, even the cube varieties that I recall from childhood, contain pork gelatine and no fruit juice at all!  

I also iced the Christmas cake, and decorated it... and it looks almost indistinguishable from every other Christmas cake I've made in previous years.