merry christmas!

We had a fairly low-key Christmas this year. We’ve been keeping our spending on a tight reign in preparation for the new addition to the family. There will be lots of extra costs coming up, and Victoria is going to be taking perhaps a year off work. It’ll be a stretch, but I’m sure we’ll be fine. Fortuitously, our mortgage will be coming up for renewal in February, so we have the option of reducing our repayments for a while at least (not to mention the current lower interest rates). But I digress…

As has become the tradition, we headed around the corner on Christmas morning, the car groaning under the weight of presents, to Victoria’s sister’s house for Christmas lunch. We sat around in the proper laid-back Christmas attitude ruminating on the events of the year, nibbling strawberries and sipping punch. We exchanged presents before lunch, and unsurprisingly Charlotte, our 5-year-old niece collected the most impressive haul, although bro-in-law Steve made a late surge with a complete Guitar Hero World Tour setup for his PS3. The highlights of my pressies were the book ‘Global Baker’ by Dean Brettschneider – a very successful kiwi baker, and a bag of Grano Tenero ‘00’ flour from Vic. Oh, and a new wooden spoon! Bring on the pizza baking!

Afterwards we headed to a beautifully-laid table replete with goody bags at each place. As usual, Steph put on a very impressive spread, starting with poached Salmon fillet (sure to become another tradition) before moving on to the traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings. Two types of stuffing, multiple roast and fresh veges, bread sauce and cranberry sauce left little room for dessert. Luckily, I found a spot, as we had the first of my puddings along with the requisite cream, custard and brandy sauce. As it turned out the pudding was a triumph (if I say so myself) – even better than the previous year’s efforts. It was very flavoursome and dense, but also surprisingly light, soft and moist. It didn’t suffer from the lack of figs, and the three types of toasted nuts (walnut, almond and hazelnut) added a subtle earthy undertone. Yum.

We’d barely started digesting lunch when we had to abscond to my parents’ place for dinner, although we did sneak a quiet hour at home in between. More indulgent lounging around ensued, punctuated with a few bouts of GT4 racing using Dad’s new Logitech steering wheel control – a present from Mike. Also from Mike was a ticket for me to see Top Gear live! Very cool, and way too generous! Dinner was fantastic, the main course being an amazing Beef Wellington, the first Mum had made. With the horseradish sauce and roast veges on the side, it was nigh on perfect. Dessert was pudding again, only this time it was last year’s that Mum had kept. This one definitely had suffered from the year’s aging. It was a bit dry and hard, and much of the flavour seemed to have disappeared somewhere along the way. Lesson learned.

It may have been a low key Christmas, but it was all the more enjoyable for it. I actually felt quite Christmassy this year, and played all the Christmas music we have to death all through December! It’ll certainly be a different dynamic next year with a baby in the house!