Christmas 2010

*knock knock knock* “Hello? Anybody home…?”

It’s been a month of non-activity around here but all that means is that other parts of life have been far from quiet. Just when I thought things were returning to some semblance of normality, someone made a last minute decision to head overseas which resulted in rushed arrangements. Then someone else fell ill – a trip to a hospital emergency department, urgent surgery and a one-week stay in hospital, a few days discharged home then back to the emergency department followed by a few days of in-hospital observation before, thankfully, being discharged again partway through Christmas Day. In between were many visits to the hospital, a cancelled weekend trip to Melbourne for a friend’s wedding, a cancelled family dinner for Winter Solstice and a pre-Christmas party with friends being rescheduled to a post-Christmas one. *exhale*

It’s been hectic. It’s been harrowing. It’s been exhausting for Monsieur Poisson and I, but it really rings true that good health plus family is a combination for happiness.

Christmas lunch in the Poisson/Délicieuse household was served at almost 4pm after we had collected someone from the hospital with the good news they were allowed to go home. Food was much the same as Christmas last year and seems to be the only time when I cook a rolled chicken roast! This year, however, was the exciting addition of it being served on a proper dining table instead of the small round table-for-two in the kitchen corner.

A party for friends planned for Christmas Eve was delayed until a couple of days after Christmas and was the first event staged on the new dining table. It was filled with retro prawn cocktails, roast chicken drumsticks – some with skin and some without (hello, Dr King…), roasted vegetables, salad and kransky-topped roast potato with garlic, onion and rosemary.

Sweets in the order of coffee macarons (made with this recipe but with instant coffee in place of cocoa powder, and Tia Maria in place of the Baileys), raspberry friands and gingerbread (recipe from Phuoc’n Delicious) decorated with white chocolate heralded the start of our blind Kris Kringle. It’s always a fun exercise to see what creativity comes of having to choose a purposeful, unisex and sometimes quirky/funky gift in keeping with the price limit and not knowing for whom you are buying. Monsieur Poisson scored this cute-as cherry-pitter from Mistress for which, of course, I ultimately benefit! I haven’t brought myself to take it out of its box yet, as the packaging is adorable in itself. And the red, felt, stencil table-runner on which it’s sitting? A most thoughtful gift from Mistress for our new dining table.

So that wraps up Christmas for another year but the decorations will dot the place for a little bit longer still.

a belated merry Christmas & happy eating!