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ventaDecember 24th? Must be time for my annual Christmas bulletin.
For reasons too long-winded to go into here, we pulled up at my parents' house last night in a somewhat battered, borrowed, twenty-year-old BMW. Beemers are built to last, and it got us here in relative comfort and safety (possibly it would not have done had I not paused and lobbed in the litre of oil that brought the level up to just over the bottom line on the dipstick. But I digress).
This morning was the usual run down into the village with the mother, to act as beast of burden when she collected the butcher's order. One turkey, one piece of gammon, one piece of salmon-cut beef, some bacon, around three yards of Cumberland sausage, a growler[*], a baby Wensleydale cheese[**]... it was a heavy bag, anyway. The smallish butcher's shop had eight people serving flat out, and a queue out of the door.
We did a quick trip into town for the regular mid-week communion service at my parents' church, then home for cullen skink for lunch. We sat about eating rather too many chocolate biscuits, and drinking tea, then I popped next door with a bag of presents. I paused for a chat, and a cup of tea, and a biscuit. I scooted home (with reciprocal bag of presents) in time to catch a lift round to my godparents' house to deliver their presents, and be given a cup of tea, and some home-made shortbread.
At some point in all this was a vague catastrophe, when the fairy-lights (tested yesterday) were put on the tree and resolutely refused to light up. I had been talking a couple of days previously about how modern fairly lights are great, and how you don't have all that 1980s fannying about trying to find the duff bulb, so it's basically my fault. Anyway, it turns out all the fairly-lights needed was someone with a rock-solid disbelief that they didn't work, and by the time my Dad had discovered that the local sells-everything kind-of-hardware shop was closed and thus couldn't sell him a new set, I had the lights back on the tree and glowing prettily.
[Interlude, in which my Dad brings me a pint. Tastes like Badger's Golden Glory. Excellent.]
At various times the Christmas decorations were lobbed into their usual locations. In line with the idea of exchanging traditions, we picked up a nice new bauble for the Christmas tree (as recommended by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lnr) - a rather sparkly polar bear, which the mother has accorded pride of place at the front of the tree. I wrapped some presents, which the Amazon elves had delivered at the last minute.
(The above is possibly my first experimentation with LJ pics. If it comes out massive, sorry. If it fails to come out at all, sorry.)
There are a few departures from tradition. My parents seem to have caught Art of late, and there is a new picture at the top of the stairs whose frame appears to have acquired a nice garland of tinsel. I have disposed of a surfeit of plastic silver icicles by hanging them on a cactus. The wooden crib scene on the telephone table[****] seems to contain slightly more origami penguins than I feel is really expected of something notionally set in Bethelehem. But, y'know, it's basically the same as last year.
We had the growler for tea, then toasted crumpets on the coal fire and ate them for afters with too much jam. I have transformed the Cumberland sausage[*****] into little sausages, and snuggled some of them up in bacon blankets, and peeled tomorrow's potatoes, and scraped tomorrow's carrots. The mother did Things to the turkey, and put the giblets on to boil for gravy (and possibly cats), and made the stuffing. And now I have a nice fire, and a pint, and it's nearly Christmas.
If you're celebrating Christmas, have a good one. If you're not, enjoy whatever you're doing with your day.
[*] For residents of alien counties[***], a growler is a large pork pie.
[**] No, I don't know why the butcher sells cheese.
[***] By alien, I mean not Yorkshire. Which includes me, technically, because Darlington is in Durham.
[****] The telephone table: a small wooden table in the hall that, throughout the year, contains various things including a ceramic sphinx, keys, handbags, or anything that happens to be en route to somewhere else, but not actually a telephone.
[*****] One of these years I will decorate the Christmas tree with garlands of unlinked Cumberland sausage. Briefly.
For reasons too long-winded to go into here, we pulled up at my parents' house last night in a somewhat battered, borrowed, twenty-year-old BMW. Beemers are built to last, and it got us here in relative comfort and safety (possibly it would not have done had I not paused and lobbed in the litre of oil that brought the level up to just over the bottom line on the dipstick. But I digress).
This morning was the usual run down into the village with the mother, to act as beast of burden when she collected the butcher's order. One turkey, one piece of gammon, one piece of salmon-cut beef, some bacon, around three yards of Cumberland sausage, a growler[*], a baby Wensleydale cheese[**]... it was a heavy bag, anyway. The smallish butcher's shop had eight people serving flat out, and a queue out of the door.
We did a quick trip into town for the regular mid-week communion service at my parents' church, then home for cullen skink for lunch. We sat about eating rather too many chocolate biscuits, and drinking tea, then I popped next door with a bag of presents. I paused for a chat, and a cup of tea, and a biscuit. I scooted home (with reciprocal bag of presents) in time to catch a lift round to my godparents' house to deliver their presents, and be given a cup of tea, and some home-made shortbread.
At some point in all this was a vague catastrophe, when the fairy-lights (tested yesterday) were put on the tree and resolutely refused to light up. I had been talking a couple of days previously about how modern fairly lights are great, and how you don't have all that 1980s fannying about trying to find the duff bulb, so it's basically my fault. Anyway, it turns out all the fairly-lights needed was someone with a rock-solid disbelief that they didn't work, and by the time my Dad had discovered that the local sells-everything kind-of-hardware shop was closed and thus couldn't sell him a new set, I had the lights back on the tree and glowing prettily.
[Interlude, in which my Dad brings me a pint. Tastes like Badger's Golden Glory. Excellent.]
At various times the Christmas decorations were lobbed into their usual locations. In line with the idea of exchanging traditions, we picked up a nice new bauble for the Christmas tree (as recommended by
lnr) - a rather sparkly polar bear, which the mother has accorded pride of place at the front of the tree. I wrapped some presents, which the Amazon elves had delivered at the last minute.(The above is possibly my first experimentation with LJ pics. If it comes out massive, sorry. If it fails to come out at all, sorry.)
There are a few departures from tradition. My parents seem to have caught Art of late, and there is a new picture at the top of the stairs whose frame appears to have acquired a nice garland of tinsel. I have disposed of a surfeit of plastic silver icicles by hanging them on a cactus. The wooden crib scene on the telephone table[****] seems to contain slightly more origami penguins than I feel is really expected of something notionally set in Bethelehem. But, y'know, it's basically the same as last year.
We had the growler for tea, then toasted crumpets on the coal fire and ate them for afters with too much jam. I have transformed the Cumberland sausage[*****] into little sausages, and snuggled some of them up in bacon blankets, and peeled tomorrow's potatoes, and scraped tomorrow's carrots. The mother did Things to the turkey, and put the giblets on to boil for gravy (and possibly cats), and made the stuffing. And now I have a nice fire, and a pint, and it's nearly Christmas.
If you're celebrating Christmas, have a good one. If you're not, enjoy whatever you're doing with your day.
[*] For residents of alien counties[***], a growler is a large pork pie.
[**] No, I don't know why the butcher sells cheese.
[***] By alien, I mean not Yorkshire. Which includes me, technically, because Darlington is in Durham.
[****] The telephone table: a small wooden table in the hall that, throughout the year, contains various things including a ceramic sphinx, keys, handbags, or anything that happens to be en route to somewhere else, but not actually a telephone.
[*****] One of these years I will decorate the Christmas tree with garlands of unlinked Cumberland sausage. Briefly.
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Date: 2014-12-25 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 02:18 pm (UTC)Merry Christmas!
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Date: 2014-12-25 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 07:44 pm (UTC)