Merry Christmas One and All

Christmas tree at the Eaton Centre

Merry Christmas everyone from Thornhill, Ontario. Hope you all had a great time, either with family, friends or both, or just having some time off if you don't celebrate Christmas. This greeting is probably late for most, but as there are 12 days of Christmas to go, I hope it's not too late.

Maracas 24/12/2009

It's been a funny year for us this year, we have not had Christmas day on our own for a very long time.  As a family, we have always travelled to Dave's parents' or they have come to us.  Last year, was the 1st Christmas without my father-in-law, who passed away in June, 2009.  My mum-in-law, Janet, travelled with Karen (Dave's sister) and her family out to Trinidad to spend an equatorial Christmas with us.  We spent Christmas Eve in Maracas, on the beach and went back again on Boxing Day when Janet braved the waves and went in the sea. It was lovely to have a hot Christmas.

This year could not be more different, we had a white Christmas, the first ever to be experienced by the kids and I, and Dave cannot remember the last time it snowed at Christmas time in the UK.  We have had no visitors for Christmas year.  It was a different Christmas for the family back home too.  Janet had Karen and Alice(Karen's daughter) over at hers for Christmas. David(Karen's son) christmassed in London, and Tony(Karen's now ex-husband), well I don't know how Tony spent his Christmas.

Christmas is a time of happiness and joy, a time of goodwill and cheer. I did not feel it that much this year. Bah, Humbug! I miss having an extended family Christmas, it makes it more meaningful when you celebrate Christmas with most of your loved ones.  Of course extended family celebrations can be fraught with all sort of stresses, like cooking a big meal for everyone, wanting to please everyone's tastes, dealing with over indulgence of alcohol and the behaviour that accompanies this.  Still, when everything's said and done, it beats spending Christmas on your own! hehehe

Christmas was not a big thing for me, as my family at home did not celebrate it. We were Buddhists, and therefore we never exchanged presents, did not have roast turkey at home or even a Christmas tree. What we did was celebrate with our friends who were Christians and had 'open houses' where they served food, drinks and treats all day, with friends dropping by to wish them a Merry Christmas.  It wasn't till I went to the UK that I started celebrating Christmas in my own home.

Christmas took on a greater meaning when the kids were born, I wanted them to have all the things I missed as a child. I know I should be teaching them the meaning of Christmas, that of one celebrating the birth of Jesus, and to a certain extent I did. I didn't want them to just think of Christmas as a time where a man with white hair and a white beard all dressed in red would come down the chimney and leave them presents if they have been good that year.  Though I did use this as a tool to get my kids to do things! Santa's watching you, I would say, which was true!

HO HO HO

The fun side of Christmas took over though, with Advent calendars with chocs or little gifts, leading up to Christmas with an over indulgence of presents, food and treats consumed over the festive season.  Actually, I did not even know what an advent calendar was when I first arrived in the UK, never ever having had one in my life before I left home.  I somehow did not see anything exciting about opening a window and getting a small piece of chocolate for my troubles.  This year, I got the kids a Lego calendar, and the kids absolutely loved waking up in the morning, to see what little treasure they got for that day.  In the past, they had calendars and forgot to open the windows for a few days, these calendars were ones containing chocolates. I would forget to remind them, and some years, Christmas would arrive and the calendar still had 5-10 unopened windows!

PS3!

We have again indulged the kids, both Mitchell and Jasmine have had expensive gifts with a few smaller gifts thrown in, not to mention the gifts from the UK.  Dave too has been very generous and has bought me a 4 month unlimited yoga class pass at Yogatree amongst other presents.  This is a great gift, for one, it will help me burn off the calories I have consumed over the last few months, and it will also be good for my mental health.  Dave got some items that he asked for and we all got some pyjama bottoms!

Jas with Amazon Parcel

Now, for the bad part, I was bad mother of the year again, as I was shouting at the children by 10 o'clock, arghhh. It may have been justified but I still feel very bad for shouting at them on Christmas day.  I apologised and Dave reassured me by saying he shouted at them too! 2 wrongs do not make a right.  Jasmine came up to me and said she deserved being told off, and I said she didn't as it was Christmas day. What a lousy mum I am sometimes, but, hey, I am not perfect, and don't worry, I am not beating myself up about it.

Turkey lurkey

Dinner was a lovely roast turkey crown and all the trimmings and Dave had a lovely mushroom loaf that he made himself.  We had arranged to skype Janet and eat our Christmas dinner together, us at 1pm and they at 6pm, as we were 5 hours behind.  It was all planned and timed, and the cooking was going well. Mitch had table tennis coaching today, despite the fact it was Christmas. Madness, right? Oh well, off he went with Dave, and I was expecting them back at about 12.30pm. This came and went and no Dave and Mitch.  It was getting close to 1pm before they got back. I was slightly cross as we were meant to skype the family at 1pm and everything was ready, the starters had gone cold.  In addition, I had set the smoke alarm off several times, it's too blooming sensitive, I only have to open the oven for a while whilst cooking to set it off! All sorts was racing thru my mind whilst I was waiting for them to appear, crazy as I am. I was wondering if they may have had an accident as it was cold and there was patches of black ice about on the roads and I hadn't heard from them. Silly me.

Mushroom Loaf, yummy

"Where have you been, do you know what time it is?" greeted Dave as he walked in thru the door. It turns out Mitch was offered extra coaching at the end, which caused the delay in getting home.  "What can I do to help?" says Dave.  With the meal cooked, table laid, not a single thing! As I served up the vegetables, I said to Dave, put some butter on the vegetables. I carry on carving the turkey and serving, Dave goes to the fridge, gets the butter out and fills the butter dish, and places the dish on the table. No butter on the veg though!  I was definitely not having a good day.... I know, I know, I should be thankful that I have my loved ones with me, I have cooked a delicious meal, I have presents to open etc etc.... I should chill out more, not get so uptight about trivial things, it's not the end of the world if there's not butter on the veg, in fact, it's probably a good thing.   The skype thing did not work, due to technical difficulties at the UK end, we did not manage to have Christmas dinner together.  Thank goodness I have yoga lessons for the next 4 months!

Anyhow, we have had a lovely relaxed day of eating, drinking, enjoying our gifts and each others company, no more cross words nor upsets after lunch...Bliss....as usual, a lot of leftovers as I had cooked too much, as always, sure could do with a cookbook called 101 ways with leftover turkey for the next few days!

Pudding in flames

I hope you all have had a lovely time too, and enjoying some time off... we will be hitting the shops tomorrow, Dave needs some ski clothes as we are planning to go skiing over the next week.  The shops are having a huge sale tomorrow, with some opening their doors at 6am! H&M will be open at 7am and the first 100 in the queue will get an extra $100 off their shopping bill!.  I have visions of people queuing from tonight to be the first 100.  Good luck to them.