And a partridge in a pear tree (or, Christmas Part 1)

We've had so many Christmas festivities in the last week that i don't even know where to start, so I'll start at the very beginning, because that's where Maria from the Sound of Music says you should start, and she seems like a pretty smart lady.



A few months ago, Leah, Romina and I toyed with the idea of having a traditional Christmas in July, cause hello, how fun does that sound? Except with everyones busy schedules, July turned into August and August into September, and so we thought we'd just do the real thing in December instead. Romina started a tradition a few years ago of having a 'Cousin's Christmas' with just a few of the closest young ones, so we thought we'd do it again this year and make Leah an honorary cousin for the day, cause she's practically family anyway. We planned menus, discussed decorations, narrowed down a guest list and arranged a Kris Kringle. It's all fun and games, of course, until the day actually arrives and you realise you have 5 hours of cooking ahead of you and 13 people to feed at the end of it. Not to mention a house to clean.



Still, we'd gotten ourselves into it, so Leah and I headed to the shops on the morning of the great event (5 days before Christmas, cause that's the intelligent thing to do), and began what will forever be known as the Great Christmas Dinner Shopping Disaster of '09. I call it this because although we had a very firm, very clear list of things we needed to buy, a meltdown 10 minutes in saw us scrambling around like lunatics wondering whether or not we needed brandy cream. For what? No idea, but it just seemed so festive. Which became the word of the day. Was it festive? Then we needed it. Gold coins? How can you have Christmas without gold coins? In the trolley they went. Oranges? Oranges are SO Christmas-ey, plus, i could use them as decorations. In the trolley they went. Cranberries? It simply wouldn't be a traditional Christmas without them. And what were we going to do with them? "We'll just put them on the plate with the ham," said Leah vaguely. In the trolley they went.



After an hour wandering around the supermarket in this fashion, we realised we had absolutely nothing on the list, especially the smoked salmon Romina specifically asked we purchase for her old-fashioned seafood cocktail starter. Next thing i know, i look in the shopping trolley and there lie 5 boxes of frozen berries. "What," i asked Leah with strained patience, "are these for?" "Berries are very festive," she replied. "We can make some sort of dessert out of them." "But what about the salmon? WHERE is the salmon?" This became my plaintive cry throughout the rest of the expedition. It was, i note, the very last thing we hastily threw in the trolley, right after a heated argument about cheeses, of which we bought three and used none.



In the end, i did draw the line at all those berries. A stack of them were left with the poor checkout girl, who also had to wait as we ran back and forth (correction, as Leah ran back and forth) to get products with barcodes on them, cause we seemed to have several without, cause we're lucky like that.



Shopping finally done, we headed back home where i proceeded to have what i like to call a small panic attack at the stress of it all. Luckily, Leah averted the crisis by putting on Home Alone. and before i knew it i was back in the spirit of things. In a moment of Martha Stewart genius, we created what i believe to be the most beautifully decorated Christmas table in all of Sydney. I mean seriously. The oranges were a stroke of brilliance on my part. See below for confirmation.










Once the decorating was done, we realised we couldn't put off starting to cook any longer, and it was at that moment that Romina arrived, a gift from Heaven because let's be honest, without her direction i do not know WHAT we would have served up. The next few hours were a blur of cookery and alcohol (cause French Martini's, after all, just look so festive, and Mel really does know how to make 'em strong).

Now, let me just say a word about the ham. The ham was one of those things that ended up in the trolley even though it wasn't on the list. But after all, it is Christmas, and Leah and I both reasoned you couldn't have Christmas without a festive ham. Still, we had no idea what to do with said ham. So we called in Chris to make some sort of marinade for us, and Daniel looked up how to cook it in a recipe book, and hey presto - we had ourselves the most delicious ham I'd ever eaten. AND, you see through this narrative how everyones been helping out? The spirit of Christmas was alive and well in our little apartment that day. But back to the ham. The clincher for me was the cloves and oranges (see? see how oranges come in handy when cooking a Christmas feast?) which we stuck to that fine pork leg like glue. Succulently cooked, it turned out perfectly. I can still taste it as we speak. Good work gang.

Everyone about to eat

Me and Peter and my festive cocktail

Leah and Chris pull a bonbon (the ultimate in festive-ness)

So we ate and ate and ate, chicken and ham and prawns and scallops and salads and roast potato's and sweet potato's and honey carrots and Lord was it good. We even had mince pies. And just when you thought it couldn't get more festive, BAM. It just did baby. Cause Leah and I pulled out the homemade mulled wine. That's right people, you read correctly. Mulled wine. Tis the season.

Our mulled wine, spices, orange peel and all. I mean how festive is a cinnamon stick, seriously?

By this point, we were all of us suitably inebriated (well, just a little bit), and Jack was ready to open presents. So he kindly handed out everyones Kris Kringle's, before diving into his own from me and Jo - a microwave and kitchen/grill set which he loves. It comes with food you can cook, knives and forks and plates and cooking utensils, and the microwave actually whirs, so how cool is that.

And then as soon as it had begun, it was all over! And a very good time, i think, was had by all. It was great start to the Christmas week, and everyone got involved, which was great.

On Monday, Jo and I braved Westfields again for some last minute Christmas shopping, (after all, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without that familiar Westfields Christmas panic that sets in around week two in December). Then Tuesday i caught up with three of my greatest friends for our traditional Christmas dinner at Chinta Ria, one of our favourite places to eat. And here they are...!

Sonali, Kat and Faatasi (nice pose, homie)

Wednesday, Maria, Peter and I took Jack to get his photo taken with Santa Claus, which was both painful and hilarious - painful because it took us an hour of queuing to actually GET to Santa, and let me tell you now, no matter how nice they decorate Santa's Cave in David Jones, you're still in amongst what feels like hundreds of screaming children all waiting their turn to use a toy or get a balloon....ack, takes the Merry right out of Christmas. And hilarious because for all his excitement to see Santa, the minute we actually got in there he took one look at that red suit and white beard, did a 360 and high-tailed it outta there - or tried to, at least. He wanted no part of the picture-taking whatsoever, and it took a good ten minutes of everyone sitting with Santa and talking to Santa and high-fiving Santa for him to feel the slightest bit comfortable with getting on with it. The picture itself is funny - although he's smiling (and that's only because Maria, Peter and I were standing behind the camera behaving like buffoons), he's also leaning as far away from Santa as he can. Hilarious.



And on a last note, because this entry has already been far too long, we ended up that night at my parents place for dinner, and my brother and Ashley brought the dogs down to wish us good tidings for the festive season...

As you can see, Reggie and Ennis got right into the Christmas Spirit, and we hope you did too - more on the rest of our celebrations later, but for now, i hope you all had the merriest of Christmases - because we certainly did :)