Merry Christmas!

What a Christmas it's been! It's always nice to gather the whole family around the table for a traditionally-conceived Christmas dinner, but things were a little different this year. While the rest of the household were out, during the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Doreen and I had been enjoying some lovely mulled wine with fruit and brandy. There's a wonderful atmosphere that accompanies mulled wine and it always puts Doreen in a friendly and receptive mood. I'm not sure if had something to do with the bubbles in the warm, generously spiced Cava but, next thing we knew, we discovered the dining table had given way under our combined weight! Sadly, there was no hope of getting it fixed up on Christmas eve, so we had no choice but to bring in the plastic table from the garden. Personally, I would have been quite happy to retain our hand-carved wooden chairs, but Doreen felt that the clash of colours would have been too much to bear. Instead, I had to bring in the matching chairs from the garden, to go with the bright pink table!

Unfortunately the food itself didn't quite go according to plan either! Not only had we lost our table, but the oven abruptly packed in on Christmas morning (although, I should add, not as the result of any amorous circumstances, on this occasion)! Who could possibly have predicted that the cooker would suddenly stop working on Christmas Day? Admittedly the temperature dial had been tending to spark like a Roman candle over the past few months but, as I told Doreen, it's all too easy to read things into minutiae after you have been granted the benefits of hindsight. Overall, the steamed turkey seemed to go down reasonably well, although it was universally agreed that we should have emptied out the electric steamer and filled it with fresh water (after having topped it up with half a bottle of cherry brandy on the previous night, in order to steam the Christmas pudding). The hot mince pies, however, were simply a disaster!

Our Christmas dinner wasn't quite the sucess it could have been, but it's important to remember what Christmas is really about- ie. the presents! I shan't have time to list all of those that I received here, I'm afraid, but one in particular stood out. With his usual flair for gift-giving, Horace presented me with a commemorative film cell from the movie Remo - Unarmed And Dangerous(starring the great Fred Ward as Remo Williams, judging by what I have managed to gather on imdb). However, as my Uncle Bruce always says: "Christmas is about giving, not about receiving" (a policy that he sticks to rigidly, much to the frustration of his partner Dennis). Unfortunately, the stocking full of treats that I bought for Crispin turned out to contain snacks for dogs (although, on the plus side, a few days on and has barely managed to gnaw much more than half way through his first bone). However, Doreen found a lovely Santa-themed "Treat Dispenser"that has been popular amongst the whole family!