Monthly Archives: December 2013

So with Christmas over and the New Year beckoning, it must be time for the annual roundup. Of course, creeping senility means that my memories of this year go all the way back to…oh, last week some time. With that in fragile mind, I’ll begin with Christmas and see if anything less recent hoves into mind.

We had a fairly sedate Christmas this year. No panics, no arguments, no over-indulgence, no leftovers (apart from some salmon from Christmas Eve) and no excesses*.

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So here we are again, another Yule, another Yule Tarot Blog Hop. This time the theme has been given as “TURNING DARKNESS INTO LIGHT” with instruction to describe how we bring light to those around us and how we celebrate light with Yuletide traditions. You can follow the links below to navigate around the Blog Hop and read what everyone else has shared.

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Whatever you’re having for your Christmas dinner, whether you’re sticking with the modern ‘tradition’ of turkey or going for a rather more Victorian traditional goose, or even duck, beef, salmon or some other combination or beast*, you can take the opportunity to go to town with the vegetables and try something different. The usual vegetables for Christmas dinner are roast potatoes, sprouts and maybe some peas, carrots and/or parsnips, but you could do so much more. There’s nothing wrong with having peas with your roast and we probably will because we like them. They’re a solid Medieval staple but a tad unimaginative if you have them with every Sunday roast, so here are some tips, alternatives and variations you might like to try this year to make your veggies more interesting.

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Dear Marketing People,

You need to know that your adverts tend to leave me cold at best. Starting to market Christmas the second that Hallowe’en is over (and sometimes before) is guaranteed to piss people off and, quite frankly, spoil the whole holiday for us because we are so sick of it by the time it comes around. I realise that you have to start thinking about these things in July, but there really is no reason to inflict your pain on the rest of us. It’s getting so that I almost expect Hallowe’en outfits to include Santa suits. (No, don’t get any ideas!)

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We’ve just got back from DD’s Christmas music concert. It was, as is increasingly the case, something of a giggle.  Not intentionally, I might add…it’s just that I can’t help myself and once I start giggling, it really is difficult to stop. Once, it was necessary to be armed with a sheaf of tissues because 4-year-olds herded into performing Christmas plays are so unbearably cute it makes you weep. Now I need them to dab the tears of laughter from my eyes. Don’t look at me like that, there were plenty of shoulders shaking in that hall, I’ll have you know.

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