Sunday 27th December - 2nd day of Christmas

Christmas Dinner - Lamb tagine with pasta

 

Christmas Day 

As almost everyone else must be saying - was that the weirdest Christmas ever?

It started normally-ish; opening stocking presents at breakfast time, and zoom church seems fairly normal these days. Several members of the zoom congregation were still in pyjamas and dressing gowns; so much more practical for church these days.

We had opened our presents soon after. This was a fairly tricky task; so many of the parcels were un-labelled this year. We are both in the habit of making a list of who gave what, and had to make several guesses. Then lunch; there was a small turkey in the fridge; we eyed it up and opted for lamb tagine from the freezer instead. Good call. In the afternoon we zoomed the offspring and watched them open their presents after their celebration Christmas meal of favourite Chinese dishes. This provided an excellent opportunity to revise our lists.

Boxing Day - 1st Day of  Christmas

I spent The Entire Morning, starting at 10:30, prepping the turkey, prepping the veg, prepping the accompaniments, mostly successfully. The only casualty was the bread sauce; the milk was quietly sitting in a jug infusing the flavours of peppercorns, cloves, nutmeg and onion when suddenly it was accidentally launched floor-wards, landing in the cat-food bowl which, being glass, shattered. Himself went upstairs and and changed his trousers, which had been sprayed with flavour-some milk, and I swept up the mix of cat food, glass, spices and onions. Floor-washing was the next unscheduled activity (that had been on the to-do list for a few days so was glad to get that done).

So, our Christmas meal was turkey, gravy, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, roast carrots, red cabbage, sprouts, bacon and sausage meat balls, and cranberry sauce. No bread sauce, and no stuffing. It was all very good... but was it worth five hours prep and cooking, followed by an hour to clear the kitchen (3 roasting tines, three saucepans, assorted utensils and plates and serving dishes? Yesterday's prep was 5 mins (remove container from freezer and place in oven) and clearing up was maybe 10 minutes?

Which brings us to today...

or maybe last night; Storm Bella was fairly bumptious round our way and it was pretty noisy. So this morning I was feeling slow and lazy and lacksadaisical.

Much to my amazement, I suddenly found some energy after lunch. This could be because I had eaten most of the chocolate Santas in Christmas stocking. So we slowly walked round the block in the last of the afternoon sunshine. I have come to the conclusion that every direction from our house is more or less uphill, if only slightly. Halfway round the circuit I was considering sending Himself home to fetch the car, but luckily the downhill gradient started and I managed to complete the distance. All 800m!

We have just finished watching 'The Sound of Music'; I don't think I have watched it for about thirty years. It was almost like watching it for the first time...

The chair is empty because Himself has just gone to fetch me a drink...