My First Christmas (away from home)

The festive preparations began in earnest on Christmas Eve as we trudged through a foot of snow with 15 empty beer bottles each to take for recycling at B.C. Liquor. Of course we also picked up some full bottles from that particular store. Then we headed to Safeway, prepared to fight for the last chicken/sprout/parsnip etc. We did manage to get the last chicken without resorting to violence but there was no sprouts left (shame) and no parsnips at all so our Christmas feast was not all it could have been. We gathered our haul and left Safeways for the dangerous journey back $140 lighter than when we had arrived. Still, who can put a price on Christmas. When we arrived home Greg had to leave again because he hadn't bought his beer so he had a second journey while me and Debbie heated up and put our foods away.
In the evening, Debi Jack arrived so we had baked potatoes for dinner and watched Debbie's present pile expand. Then we went to bed for the last sleep before Christmas.
When we awoke (bight and early) it was Christmas!!! We got up at 9am and opened all our presents! I think I'll pause here for a photographic interlude to break up the text...

Our collection of Festive Cheers

Our festive floor

Our pretty Christmas Eve living room

The Debbies all excited about Christmas

All of the presents

Debbie dishing out our presents

All my presents when I took the paper off

Debbie and Debi and the mess of Christmas

Greg with his snowglobe and Nerds

The aftermath

That's enough for you for the time being. Don't want you getting over excited now.

After showering, and before we did anything else, we felt it was necessary to multiply our festive cheer so we mulled some more wine and got a little merry with that. Turns out if you want to have nice mulled wine, you're best adding some honey.

Once our vision had been impared slightly Debbie and Debi got started on their starter; sweet potato and coconut soup (Debbie) and cheese and onion scones (Debi). It was pretty fantastic and exactly the right amount to keep the hunger at bay, as we had no idea when we'd be eating the main meal (The Schedule had gone out the window hours ago).

Since it had been snowing a lot recently we had already decided that snowmen must be built and we slotted that in between the starter and the undertaking of the main event. I didn't bring my ski gloves because I'm an idiot and I had to retire indoors pretty quickly because my hands were all red and sore and freezing. Around 4 we started preparing the chickens and potatoes and all the rest of the food we'd bought. I didn't think it'd take two solid hours in the kitchen but it turns out Christmas dinner's a lot of work! Anyway, 2 hours, multiple smoke alarms and a tiny fire later it was ready to be eaten. I was pretty proud of myself. The menu consisted of a chicken with butter, garlic and parsley under it's skin and an onion inside it, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, carrots and red onions, bacon curls/pigs in blankets, bread sauce (which I made from scratch), pork, chesnut an onion stuffing, cabbage, cranberry sauce and gravy. There was a lot of food and I really should have stopped eating a long time before I did. Thoroughly enjoyed myself though.

We had a short break before Greg cooked his apple pie and then tucked into some of that which was also good.

After much groaning and stomach expansion we eventually perked up a bit and began playing some board games and drinking games.

All in all I had an excellent day and I hope everyone else had fun too.

I'm getting hassled to get dressed and go shopping now so I should go. Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Mulled wine

Sweet potato and coconut soup

Cheese and onion scones

The First Course

Our snowman

Me and the snowman

Debbie and the snowman

Debi and the snowman

Me balling up some stuffing

Pigs in blankets (there's only two because Greg used all the rest of the sausages for stuffing) and roasting veg

Getting crowded

Basting the chicken

Tending to the foods

The End Product

Tucking in

Debbie seems to be enjoying herself

Yum

Getting full?

Put a fork in me

Clean plates

Digestion

Pie time