A Christmas Tale (and other stories from the Holiday Season)

It's 2007. Yeah! I remember how weird it was saying "2004" or "2005", or even "1997" and that was 10 years ago. Anyhoo, without any delay, I wish you all a bright and successful year ahead as I do for myself. At least I'm honest about it.

This was my first "holiday season" in England and I got to spend some quality time with friends - something I haven't done in too long. So when our very own resident Parisian catwalked through the Waterloo terminal on Christmas Eve morning I ran to her with open arms. Then I sniffed her.

"Err" I stuttered.

"IT'S THE CHEESE, SOOS" she barked back with a smile. I broke into a huge grin and jumped her again. She brought me the cheese! And not just any "the cheese", but all "the cheese" I could ask for! We then made our way back home (which unbeknownst to us, would be our smelly sanctuary for the next 2 days), giggling, reminicscing of old times and planning our break together. Of course, the second we got into the flat we tore open her near empty suitcase that was half filled with the goods. The camembert, the roquefort, the second favourite which was clearly my first favourite... the good stuff. Needless to say, I couldn't take any pictures as i consumed most of it without any delay, so I had to resort to a google image to show you a taste what I've been gorging on for the last week.

Oh yeah, I can see you drooling. Take that and times it by 6 different pasturised blocks of heaven. And of course, for the next 2 days, every other sentence that came out of our mouths had to comment on the smell of feet coming from the fridge. Oh, it was a good smell to me, but by the end of Day 1, my christmas companions did not agree.

So it was Christmas time and our main mission was to feast, which we did with pleasure. Christmas Eve was a feast of nibbles and when Christmas Day came we were ready: Time to cook our birds. Our mulla friend had kindly explained her special slaughtered diet in advance and we were ready for it - although we couldn't find the right turkey, we did find his Muslim cousin The Chicken and found it fit for the job. This meant that since we clearly weren't going to have a whole chicken and a whole turkey (and the fact that I heard some people DIE from eating Turkey that isn't cooked right and I freaked out on Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve! I was one of those people who freaked out on Christmas Eve!), we resorted to a nice slab of Turkey Joint for us electrofied meat eaters. Yummm.

The Chicken had to be stuffed and someone had to do the job:

Note, those are not my pretty white hands as I'm of the brown variety - but those hands did a lot of poking and it was well worth it. Our Chicken was cooked to a perfect crisp, our turkey didn't kill anyone (whew) and our sides were de-licious. Unfortunately, CARROTS were our enemy this christmas but I'll let it slide as we did manage to cook up a feast fit for a
dozen baby Jesuses.

Nice eh? I'm feeling a sense of pride at our meal. We ate until we sweat gravy and couldn't eat anymore. We were all in our PJs, watched some Christmas movies (including Elf, every christmas needs some Will Ferrell) and spent time together dancing to Christmas Carols. As I write this now from work, I miss rockin' around the Christmas tree and nasal singing "Santa Babyyy... tooo dooo dooo doo dooo too too too too!" Good times...

Of course, no Christmas in London is complete with the obligatory rib-crushing-boxing-day-excursion. Yup, the next day we bundled up in our most comfortable clothes and decided to see what the fuss was all about way too late to enjoy it. We were crushed, stepped on and shoved aside to grab clothes/handbags/shoes/cutlery/body parts/you name it... Everything was on sale and everything was up for grabs. We went, we saw, we got trampeled on. I would put up a picture of my exhausted fake smile while waiting for my Senchen Phad Thai that evening but I'm scared someone would recognize me as "That Cow that was in my way in Selfridges". Apparently, we were in everyone's way the whole 15 minutes we spent inside.

Overall, it's been a good week. I went back to work for 2 days where I managed to bill a helluva lot more clients than they would have liked (Merry Christmas!) and then took some time off for a nice and quiet New Year's celebration. Unfortunately, no pictures there but I assure you it was just lovely. That period was spent relaxing, reflecting and eating good cheese (you thought I'd leave it out, didntchya?): Now let's see if our predictions for 2007 will come true.

Lot's of love,

Soos x