This post will be written over a number of hours during Christmas day, I'm going to dip in and out. Just now it is 7am - quiet and no-one is up. The presents are all round the tree. I'm drinking a lovely hot cup of coffee and eating a brioche.
Yes that is a garden incinerator below. It was on my Christmas list!
I love my morning coffee, when I am at work, it's the only one I can guarantee will be hot all the way down to the last sip! I'm going to pop round to John's to see the boys and take their presents in an hour or so.
We had a lovely Christmas Eve lunch together yesterday. All my boys round the table. Ahh. Well actually Max was sparked out on the sofa.
Sorry about the quality of the photos - the light was bad and my phone isn't very forgiving. That and photography is not one of my strong points of course.
Back to this morning: Ben loved his lego train
But Max was more interested in Postman Pat
Ben started to sort his pieces out and Max continued to watch. My father would have said he would get square eyes from being that close to the telly.
Back at home I made the stuffing (oh I love chestnuts) and prepped all the veggies. I'm not that organised now although when the kids were little I used to be up until gone midnight sorting things so the big day was devoted to revelling in the joy of Christmas with little ones. We also had various relations to dinner which meant you could chat rather than peel sprouts.
The Christmas Pudding is a sheer indulgence. I always plan to make a pud in the October half term break and never do. But this is the nicest one I have ever tasted. With a little Bailey's Irish cream flavoured cream it is GORGEOUS.
I made a flourless chocolate cake for lunch yesterday and Will can have that for his pud (although he probably won't eat it straight after). He doesn't like Christmas pudding. The cake was made with chocolate, butter sugar and whipped eggs. It filled the mixing bowl
It tastes more like mousse. Actually if I hadn't cooked it that's exactly the same recipe I would make for mousse. The recipe is from Edd Kimber (The Boy Who Bakes)
We won't eat until 5pm. A throw back from the farm when we ate after all the animals had been settled down for the night. My father in law liked to eat at lunch time which meant we had to feed the cattle about 3pm - a bit tipsy and very full. It's not the best end to a Christmas Dinner! That was one tradition I ditched as soon as I could! We just eat brunch now and then we can stretch out after dinner knowing that everything is safely away for the night. Actually I think I'll get a quick bite. Its 12.40 now, maybe I could crack open the Bucks Fizz....
So the meal was cooked, the kitchen tidied, the available washing up all done and the bird carved.
All that shopping, preparing and slaving. The turkey was tasty and the trimmings all delicious. But what a lot of fuss! (I love it and will do it all again next year of course). Actually we have enough stuff prepared for a few days. It's not just down to one meal. It's been very quiet this year, very calm. The one annoying thing is that I couldn't find the snow globe placemats I made, especially for this one meal.
Hey ho.
6.50pm and I haven't had any Christmas pudding. I am now in my pyjamas. So to finish off the poem - Happy Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!
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