Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Snow and Water, Christmas and Chocolate

We have lots of snow at the moment but.... they are talking rain today, so do we get a white or a green Christmas? I do hope it doesn't rain too much. Most incredible pictures on TV in the last 24 hours, a burst water main flooding a street. There is a video here which shows some pictures and gives details. I couldn't understand why a water main would flood so badly but apparently the main was 66 inches in circumference and pumping out 150,000 gals a minute, an incredible amount of water. Luckily everyone was rescued. Glenda Larke (Tropic Temper this page) was talking about Christmases past this morning which made me think about my past Christmases which I have also celebrated in different parts of the world. One of my fondest memories was in Malta, funnily enough, where we spent a lot of the holiday playing Twister which was absolutely hilarious. My mother was a big "Christmas" person and used to do everything possible to make Christmas special with lots of little presents under the tree from Santa, the dog and anyone else she could think of. We always started our day with thinly shaved ham and hot Coleman's mustard together with champagne. This was about 11 a.m. Of course presents had all been opened by then. We would then eat our Turkey late in the afternoon and follow it with Christmas pudding and Rum Butter. The pudding was always decorated with a piece of holly and all the lights were turned off and the pudding set alight with burning brandy when it was brought into the dining room. As Glenda mentioned, there always used to be money in the pudding, in England it was silver threepenny bits. Nobody died of any kind of poisoning but nobody does that any more. Admittedly you can't get silver threepenny bits either. Some people put silver charms in their puddings which I guess could be more dangerous if swallowed. I have made puddings for years, but nowadays no coins or charms, plus I keep them in the freezer and as we often don't finish a whole pudding, I save them from year to year. For instance, this year we have a half a pudding for just Matt and I. It has been absorbing extra brandy for the last week or so and should be really good. Last Christmas I wrote how good our son-in-law's pudding was, I still haven't tried his recipe because I have puds already made. One thing I will miss from last year's visit to the UK was daughter #2's chocolate fountain. I remember that with extreme fondness. It was delicious. I wonder and haven't asked, if she has used it since, or plans to this year. Something I can do great damage to, it, of course, returns the compliment. So Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope you have a wonderful day - don't eat too much of all those goodies, save some for the next day. I wish you every joy of the season and a successful and Happy New Year.

4 comments:

  1. Merry Christmas to everyone. Gay

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  2. Thanks Gay and same to you. Enjoy your trip to Niagara.

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  3. Thanks for your lovely e-card, Jo! I hope you and Matt are having a reaally happy and relaxing Boxing Day!

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  4. We weren't into Boxing Day when your message arrived, it was still Christmas. However, I do plan to have a relaxing day now.

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