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.
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Bang

One of the few good things about living in Blandberra is that we can legally buy fireworks on the Queen's birthday weekend.

I gave the husband $50 and sent him out to score fireworks. Since this is (and it better be) our last Queens birthday long weekend in Blandberra, I thought we had better make the most of it.

He did exedingly well, and came home with a big pack of tubes of gunpowder. We later saw the same pack for sale (at Video Easy!!) for $85.

Traditional hotdogs were prepared with fried onions, jalepenos, cheese and tomato sauce (I know, it sounds gross, but it actually works) and the girl, the delinquent and I sat and watched the nervous husband lighting the firecrackers. Some shot up and exploded in the sky, some fizzed on the ground but most gave a variation of the fountain in the picture above. The smoke from the gunpowder was thick and I wondered how many people got pulled up at the airport for having explosives residue on their clothes that weekend.
The girl (dressed in her Goth gear for the night!!) spent most of the time hiding in her cubby exclaiming "tell me when it's safe to come out!". We coaxed her out with some sparklers and after her inital fear she was soon lighting her own sparklers from the fire. She even lit a (small) firecracker - with assistance. After each bang and shower of sparks we'd all go "YAY!!" or "WOO HOO" and applaude and try to act enthusiastic without being sarcastic - which was difficult since it was so cold and most of the crackers were pretty lame. We later discovered there was communal firework lighting going on in the park on the corner, but it would have involved socialising with the native Blandberrans, and we were happier with our exclusive backyard display. Rose, the Staffy, was close to a nervous breakdown by the time it was all over. She spends every Queen's Birthday weekend and every thunderstorm trembling and hiding under my skirt - bravery isn't her strongest character trait.
Bela, however, proved himself to be a brave and fierce guard dog when he accousted the plumber that came to fix the hot water service. We had to hold him back he was so intent on attacking the intruder. I was very proud and very worried at the same time. Puppy school starts this weekend, and not a minute too soon. How do you reassure a frantic dog that the man is permitted in the house and not here to steal the telly? I shall never be afraid to walk to the 7/11 at night again.

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Applause

Oh dear, V1 is having a '82 night. Oh the nostalgia! They just played Flock of Seagulls. I find myself sitting here thinking "their hair isn't that bad!". Oh dear! Indeed! Last night I sat with two very dear girlfriends and we watched Barbarella then The Party. Funnily enough, as I type this "Hungry like the wolf" is playing on the telly. Duran Duran - mad scientist or bunch of pretty boys playing music? Barbarella - aw, I just can't summarise or comment. It just is.
It was a nice night. Unfortunately, as what usually happens when I have been separated from the child for 24 hours - my tiredness overwhelmed and I crashed out early. I wanted to, and needed to sit up late and drink too much and talk silly, girly shit, but I fell asleep. C'est la vie.
The next day I went to a party, that I had helped arrange, for my Grandmother. She turned 85 in March and I was upset no-one had made a fuss. She's got six kids for fuck's sake - could one of them organise something? Anyway, her brother and I got together and put together something of a party. He invited a bunch of people from the "other side" of the family - meaning her other brother's kids. Her other brother died in the early '70's. I remember him vaugly, remember his grandkids as spoilt shits I didn't like. Anyway, I re-met a couple of them today. Yeah, they're boguns, but nice enough.
A couple of my first cousins were there too. One I had a bonding evening with a few of years ago, not too long after I split with my girl's father. Her and her sister and I had dinner at my house, drank several bottles of wine between us, then decided to hurl the empty bottles at X's house. This was relatively easy as he was living in the house across the road. Bottles hit the house, landed in the yard and on the roof. Unfortunately he wasn't home and all we did was freak out his house mates.
Regardless, the display of solidarity warmed my heart and I have had a particular fondness for my cousins ever since.
In my family we have a tradition: at birthdays we clap out the birthday person's age. I have never met anyone else who does this. It's weird, but it's something that seems to be OURS. My cousin and I laughed about how we love this tradition. She's still young enough to not fully comprehend the humiliation of having your age clapped out and it takes so long the kids get bored.
I have really bad wog envy: I've got so many friends who have rich, cultural family backgrounds. Italians who tell stories of proscuitto making, Greeks who have red egg breaking contests at Easter, Indians who have a family recipe for garam masala and then there's us - we clap at birthdays. It's not much, but it's OURS.
We clapped 85 times for my Grandmother, we clapped 62 times for my mother and we clapped 40 times for me. And I was happy.
We are emotionally bankrupt, boguns and strangers to each other, but we clap. Read more!