Christmas Day went well, with just seven of us sitting down to lunch. Although I still struggle with timings, I make extensive checklists for Christmas Day. As one of our friends remarked, we could probably have fed twice as many people. But that's part of the beauty of Christmas lunch, as far as I'm concerned: I don't have to do any cooking for several days afterwards.
With most of the preparation done in advance, the day itself mostly involved setting things off at suitable times. I got up around 6.30 to do the first few: pudding in the steamer first thing, potatoes (prepared the night before) parboiled and left in hot water; red cabbage/apple/onion prepared and set off in the slow-cooker; carrots prepared and ready to go later; coconut cream whipped and put on the trifle.
The shepherds in my knitted Nativity set then arrived at the stable, and baby Jesus emerged from Mary, and was laid in the manger.
Then we had breakfast, and opened parcels, and went to the Christmas church service. We would have walked, but it rained for most of the morning, so we went by car. And were home in plenty of time to continue the preparations. Indeed, we were so organised that by 12.15 everything was in its place in the oven, or slow-cooker or steamer. I had even made the cranberry sauce.
Richard set the table:
- and then we sat down for a few minutes, which is almost unheard of in our household, on Christmas morning.
Our friends arrived around 12.45, and while (as usual) the potatoes took longer than I had expected, we sat down to eat by around ten past one.
When everyone had had what they wanted of the first course, and we had managed to get everything in the fridge, it was time for dessert:
We probably didn't need the cake and tiffin in addition to the trifle as alternatives for those who don't like mince pies or Christmas pudding. But they were appreciated anyway, and came out again for Christmas 'high tea' a few hours later.
When our friends three daughters went to watch some DVDs, we tried out a new game we had been given, Catan Energies:
It's a whole new game with all the parts, not an expansion to the base game. However it uses many of the rules that we were familiar with, which made it less confusing than might otherwise have been the case. It's a game about using energy, about the disadvantages of traditional power, but it is also an interesting variation on Catan. It took us a while to understand it, particularly as the rules were in German. Our friends are bilingual but translating aloud the rules of a new game is not the best way to learn it. Eventually Richard went to download and print some English rules, which helped.
We didn't get it quite right, but thought it has a lot of potential and look forward to playing it again.
Lady Jane, meanwhile, adopted the outer box in which the game had been shipped. She seems to be sleeping in it at night, so we haven't yet got rid of it.
On Boxing Day I woke with a headache, which never quite left me. Richard fried up some potatoes and leftover vegetables to have with cold turkey in the evening, and I did very little, other than some laundry.
On Saturday I did the usual sheet-changing and house-cleaning, and also cleaned and tidied the balcony outside my study, which had been getting very messy with a broken bag of soil, and a dead plant that needed removing. It didn't take all that long, and looked much nicer afterwards. And once again Richard used some of the leftovers for our evening meal.
On Sunday morning I made some tomato-pepper soup, and a couple of loaves of bread (with the breadmaker) as our friends were coming over again for our usual bi-weekly Sunday afternoon gathering. I didn't, however, make any dessert as we still had large amounts from Christmas Day. We had more cold turkey and fried potatoes with vegetables for lunch, then froze the rest of the turkey in suitable-sized bags for future pies and curries.
The 'week between the years' is always a confusing time for me, and apparently for many people; I have seen quite a few comments and memes on Facebook about being unaware what day it is, and unsure what to do. But on Monday I did take my trolley to three local shops, for the first grocery shopping since Christmas Eve. It was mainly for fruit, and one or two other things we were running low on.
I sorted the recycling and put it out, and after lunch we went to the Post Office, where we found five more cards sent by generous friends and relatives in the UK. Then we went for a walk along the sea-front, and stopped for smoothies.
Later in the afternoon our friends' three daughters came over to watch the first two 'Star Wars' films with Richard. We had eaten leftover soup for lunch, and I still didn't have to cook for the evening as one of our visitors had volunteered to make pizzas - one for each of us, with whatever toppings we wanted. And we still had plenty of cut-up vegetables from Christmas afternoon.
The pizzas were delicious:
They were also huge. And we had more leftover desserts afterwards. Half of Richard's and my pizzas went in the fridge, to eat on Tuesday.
This morning, after yet more rain, there was a gorgeous rainbow:
And so, the first quarter of the 21st century comes to an end. I wonder if I will still be blogging in another 25 years....
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