Yule Tidings

As I have vehemently stated previously – I love Christmas. Last year was something of a dud and with the girl off to Melbourne to spend time with her Dad I expected this Christmas to suck as well. The day would be only myself, the husband and the delinquent 16 year old whose company I have become loath to keep. My usual enthusiasm for baking cakes, puddings, gingerbread and panforte was absent; my enthusiasm for decorating the house and tree was also subdued by the very high possibility that Bela would just eat everything. Finally, I managed to gather some resilience and I bought a small tree – green much to the girls delight – which we decorated with pink balls and white tinsel then hid in the corner where hopefully the dog couldn’t get to it. We then baked and decorated a few trays of gingerbread for the girl to take with her for her other family.
The girl’s birthday party went well and her father whisked her away for her three week stay with him. After an initial few days of feeling lost without my sidekick some of my usual Christmas cheer started to bubble up. I made rude gingerbread people and bats and skulls for workmates. On the 23rd December, my last day of work for the year, I took in little cellophane bags of gingerbread to hand out. No-one else showed up. I hung around for a bit, eating gingerbread, then left at lunchtime. I ran around trying to find one of those reindeer so we could recreate this:
Unfortunately there were none to be found in this crapulous city. I panicked that the husband would be disappointed in the meagre collection of stuff I had as presents for him so on Christmas Eve I set out and bought a Weber BBQ. I couldn’t afford it but I rationalised that it was wanted and given we only had one oven to cook a ham, a turkey and a heap of roast veg it was also needed.
The restaurant where the husband has been working was closing after lunch on the 24th for the staff party. They had a small group booking for lunch and they thought they could get rid of them early enough. Not so. The revellers carried on until 4pm. The staff broke world records for cleanup time then settled in for a condensed two hours of eating and drinking. Note to all restaurant patrons: staff have lives too - have some manners. The chef presented us with several dozen Coffin Bay oysters and a giant ocean trout, served simply with lemon and pepper and chunks of rustic bread. It was the best fish I have ever tasted. Ah yes, on the premise of driving the husband home so he could drink, I had managed to invite myself to the lunch. What a treat!!
On Christmas Eve I prepped food (brined the turkey, boiled then marinated the pork belly in soy and garlic), wrapped presents and drank champagne, ate cherries and relaxed. Christmas morning we were woken by my Mum ringing at 8:30am (damn her early morningness) then went back to sleep for a few hours.
Panettone and champagne for breakfast then onto the business of opening presents.
I had taken a photo of the husband in Venice which I loved so much I had it printed onto a 300 x 400mm canvas, I had also purchases him new earrings (after he lost his but then found them again), a bottle of Amaris DeVin, a Bill Bailey collection DVD and of course, the Weber. He was over the moon about the print, saying it made him look cooler than James Dean.
I received a set of weights (unromantic I know, but at my request), a Soda stream – red, a bottle of Green Fairy Absinthe, and a Bill Bailey DVD. Fortunately the DVDs we had bought each other were different, but it was a cute coincidence. I gave the delinquent an Oxfam chook and some foot powder (ain’t I a bitch?) and he gave us a shower curtain and bathmat set – psychoesque blood splattered. Not a bad haul indeed.
I put together the Weber while the husband and the delinquent watched Bad Santa then we wondered how the hell we were going to cook outside in pouring rain. As the eternal optimist I convinced everyone that the rain would stop and all would be well. I peeled the ham, cut the fat, studded it with cloves and glazed it with blood orange and brown sugar. It cooked beautifully.
But the rain continued. Eventually the Weber was positioned precariously on the front door step and we fired it up. After the coals had burned and the porch hadn’t, we put the stuffed (macadamia, prosciutto and cranberry) and wrapped in ham rind turkey in to cook. While we waited I ate prawns and garlic scallops and gleefully made soda water and the husband ate oysters.
Four hours later we shoved the still raw turkey in the oven. Obviously there were things we had yet to learn about webering. Christmas lunch was served at about 7pm with kipfler and King Edward potatoes cooked in duck fat, roast pumpkin, sugar snap peas and spinach.
I had made cranberry sauce from scratch for the first time and it was divine. Simply frozen cranberries, sugar and a splash of cherry brandy boiled until the fruit was cooked (thank you Nigella, kitchen Goddess).

I will never buy the stuff in a jar again. The ham was gloriously flavoured and the turkey was moist and gorgeous. One of the best Christmas lunches I have ever had.
So after all my misgivings it ended up being a lovely day, in spite of the rain. It was relaxed and stress free. There were no frazzled, over tired children to deal with, no bad food or complaints that what we had cooked was “too rich”. Even the dogs behaved themselves and Bela refrained from eating the tree.