I have very little Christmas spirit this year. I'm not quite at the Bah Humbug end of the scale, but I'm teetering somewhere in the middle. I need to watch some Christmas chick flicks and crank up the volume on the Christmas CDs! I also think it probably has a lot to do with the fact that the party planning side of me is pooped after arranging and keeping the secret of Dave's 40th for nearly a year, I don't have the energy now to feel festive about much else in 2012! Not to mention the sad state of my bank account after all of November's festivities - has anyone yet found that money tree plantation?
One thing that has lifted my status from Bah Humbug level is a family Christmas lunch with one half of Dave's family over the weekend. It was a lovely day spent catching up with family who we don't often get to see, so it was a definite Christmas spirit-booster! Seeing baby Summer in her knitted Christmas dress with reindeer slippers couldn't help but start us off on the right foot towards getting into the spirit of the season. Compliments to the chefs who put on a gorgeous buffet spread of turkey & ham and all the trimmings. I had my very first taste of Wensleydale Cheese and I'm hooked! Sorry Lorraine and Andy.... I think I owe you a block of it after munching my way through it fairly steadily throughout the afternoon!
I am cooking a Christmas lunch for a few friends on Sunday, which should also kickstart my seasonal spirit if it hasn't already set in by then. I can already taste the stuffing and the roast potatoes... YUMM! A few years ago, when I cooked a Christmas dinner for our friends, I cooked a goose for the first time and it was absolutely delicious. I had never, nor have I since, had goose, but it was so tasty that I'm thinking of doing one again this year - that's if I can find one! I had to give up on my search last year, because there were just no geese to be seen on the supermarket shelves. Add to the lovely food the fact that there will be crackers and table decorations etc... okay, that's making me get excited now! It'll be a kind of dress rehearsal for the real thing 2 days later.
I'm incredibly lucky to have found such a fantastic mix of family and friends in this country, as well as having my biological back-ups in South Africa. And by 'back-ups', I am in no way diminishing their order in my life, I just mean it in a way to say that I know they're always there, no matter what. Because of a string of subsequent significant family birthdays starting in 2011, we haven't had a Christmas in South Africa since 2010, when my whole SA family spent an epic Christmas together on a wine and olive farm in the Cape. We are hoping to get back to having a South African Christmas in 2014, but until then and in the years in between visits, our friends and family here ensure that this African is well fed and looked after and feels very loved on the day.
And so to decorating the house.... Dave and I always have a real Christmas tree every year, which is lovely. When I first met Dave, he was a bit of a Christmas Grinch - or Scrooge, if you will. He didn't like the season, he had never felt the need to celebrate it and was a little Bah Humbug about the whole thing. While he still pretends to be Bah Humbug about Christmas, I think I've managed to sway his thinking slightly and he now - eventually - gets into the Christmas spirit and enjoys it, despite his almost constant daily question of ‘Is Christmas over yet?’. I think my usual excitement during this time of year rubs off on him just a little bit!
Gerald and Geraldine have also had a Christmas makeover this year… tres chic, no?
And we can’t forget Cedric… poor little dude stands on the floor, constantly buffed by whichever of the animals feels like inflicting pain on him whenever they pass and stealing his pine cones, but he continues to have a smile on his face, despite the abuse!
And of course, Dave’s Christmas Meerkat… who he can’t remember the name of!
So just in case I don't post again before Christmas, I hope you all have a fabulous day, spent just the way you like it! And if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you enjoy your day off and indulge and eat just as much as all of us - then we won't feel so guilty! :)
Oh... and Lucy says Merry Christmas too on behalf of the Ring pets... her brother and sister are still a little grumpy at having her around, so they're off sharpening their claws somewhere... or sleeping!
She has already made her list for Santa for next year - she has asked him to please persuade her parents not to embarrass her in Christmas gear in 2013!
Happy holidays!
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