When I was young, we had to wait until after lunch to open presents, but somewhere over the years, the wisdom of this practice was questioned and we put the children out of their misery earlier! We opened ours after church and everyone was very pleased. After removing all the wrapping, we danced a few songs on Just Dance 4 (my present, so good!) and then I moved into the kitchen while the kids enjoyed all their new things. We couldn't quite come at the $200 headphones Joss wanted, so we got her green ones from Smiggle instead.
When I was working out what food I would make for Christmas lunch, I realised that none of us are great fans of the traditional foods. I have always eaten my fill of the delicious things that come before the lunch, like egg and caviar dip (my favourite) and salted cashews. Bt the time lunch came around, I would have some salad and maybe a mouthful of meat, and then wait for dessert. None of my children are attached to ham or turkey (indeed, Toby is considering vegetarianism!) so I decided to have something we all love and consider a special treat - lamb cutlets!
Everyone loved the cutlets and it felt festive enough. It has become tradition in recent years to have Eton Mess so Andrew and the kids had that while I had the special cheesecake I sweeten with dextrose. I'm pretty good at skipping dessert these days, having been low fructose for over a year now, but Christmas definitely calls for a little sweetness.
Every year our friends, The Lords, have a bring your leftovers Christmas dinner on their farm at Junee. There were 22 people there, which went a long way towards making up for our Christmas away from family. Christmas wouldn't be quite right without cricket, either. That's Joss with the bat. She had a great game, despite showing all the signs of having inherited her mother's sporting talent, or lack thereof. The youngest Lord son, who goes to school with Joss, several years ahead, got Joss out twice but she gave him the stare of death and he let her keep batting!
The sunset was spectacular, as was the dinner with such lovely friends. Four families, multiple generations and lots of fun.
The wee kitten was very popular.
We came inside to have dessert as we were unseasonably and quite ridiculously cold - look at Joss in her borrowed coat and Nanna rug. Bethany held court until, just before ten, we thought it wise to pack up and head home.
We didn't eat too much, no-one became overwrought and it was a delightful day. By the way, I have chosen my favourite ever three shops. T2 - extraordinary customer service, truly beautiful leaf tea and teaware, The ABC Shop - for all my favourite BBC productions (look, North and South is on special!) and Zetta Florence - such lovely paper.
Memory is a funny thing - in my memory, when you were young, we had the Christmas presents from "Santa" early in the morning and the presents from the rest of the family after lunch, when the rest of the family had all gathered. We decided to do it that way because otherwise not one of you would have eaten any lunch. It was a kind of bribery I suppose, to get you all to sit and have lunch with the extended family.
ReplyDeleteI agree Mum, definitely presents from Santa and the parents were first thing. That said, I also remember the present opening with everyone being brought forward to before lunch at some point too...
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