Happy Christmas … Pass the Sausages
Posted by Rick - 25/12/07 at 11:12:42 pm
If we thought we were being spoiled by Jenny with her Chinese food cooking and overall generosity for the week, she out did herself on Christmas. As I mentioned in the previous installment, we stayed up quite late the night before drinking and generally making merry, so when we heard Jenny yell “David!” on Christmas morning, we decided we had better get up and not make Jenny wait to open her presents.
When we got downstairs, Jenny had already put out some delicious mini breakfast baps, eggrolls, and had coffee ready, so all we had to do was fall into the couch and wait while Santa Jenny handed out gifts from under the tree. After opening gifts we enjoyed more tea and coffee and relaxed under dinner.
Jenny had dinner on the table by around 1 o’clock, and wow did she ever prepare a feast! There was a turkey draped in bacon that was so juicy, despite not being brined. She said she got the idea from Gordon Ramsey. All I know is it was juicy and delicious. The rest of the meal was made up of what I understand to be the traditional English Christmas dishes. We had Brussels sprouts, steamed carrots, fried parsnips, delicious roasted potatoes, cranberry relish, and three kinds of sausages—one of which was wrapped in bacon!
Before we sat down to stuff ourselves with this amazing culinary display, we pulled crackers, put on our paper crowns, and read the lame jokes. A real English Christmas.
After dinner, we waddled out of the dining room to plop ourselves in front of the telly to catch Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas message—her 50th, and the first in high definition. The Queen had barely finished her speech when Jenny called us back to the table for dessert… errr… pudding, which was made up of Christmas Pudding, trifle and an assortment of fresh fruits, including mango, papaya and pineapple.
After puddings we again made our way to telly room to watch universally recognized tradition holiday films like Finding Nemo and Shrek 2. By the way, one of the differences I noticed about Christmas in America and Christmas in England is that Americans are more likely to have traditional films we watch for the holiday. Think Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, A Christmas Story, etc. While the Brits seem to be nostalgic about Christmas music. And the British Christmas music is more likely to be pop music than American holiday sounds. When I think of Christmas songs, I am likely to think of standards like “White Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Little Drummer Boy,” etc. The pop Christmas songs I hear in England are songs that may have been played in America the year they were released, but rarely are played after. Songs like “Last Christmas” by Wham!, “Wonderful Christmas Time” by Paul McCartney, and Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas.” The latter seemed to drop off American airwaves almost immediately after Live Aid in 1985. Anyway, just an observation. I still never heard Santa’s Super Sleigh though.
After watching the aforementioned Christmas classic films, Sarah, Chris and I took a long walk around the neighbourhood to walk off dinner and pudding. We must have walked for an hour or so, but still felt full when we returned. Before we left we knew that there was still another course of food, but when we were told there was cheese, we envisaged a cheese plate and some crackers. What we returned to was a whole new meal. There were 8 different kinds of cheeses, a deli meat platter, crackers (the edible kind), bread, chutneys, bread sauce, olives, onions, pickles, celery, carrots, and port wine. We told ourselves we wouldn’t eat much, but it is impossible to get away with not eating when Jenny is in charge! Besides it was cheese! So it didn’t take too much convincing to get us to over indulge.
At this point I had to loosen my belt and have a lie down. We retired for the final time of the evening to the television room to watch the Red Dwarf marathon before I excused myself to go to bed. Sarah, Chris and David popped open a bottle of champagne and had a few glasses before finally saying goodnight to Christmas. One of the best Christmas’ ever.
Next: Boxing Day (Adventures with Essexjan)
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What’s a breakfast “bap”?
Comment by Steph — February 8, 2008 #