Bonfire night has come and gone, it now means that I can officially declare xmas and break out the xmas decorations!!!
Tag: christmas
And the theme for xmas this year is…
owls!
We went to John Lewis, Palmers and Scottsdales and everywhere we go there are xmas owls.
Bobbles approves.
Holiday Redux
A new year has come, and I’m as tired now as I was before the holiday rush.
Plans got muddled because of all the weather and health issues. I caught a cold just before the holidays and the beastie caught it off of me just a week before Christmas. He was snottyliscious up until a day or so before the big day but it cleared up and wasn’t an issue. We were supposed to go to Costco to buy some of the last-minute stuff but with the roads in the state they were in and with the beastie under the weather, we went to Tesco instead. I cooked a ham and a ribeye beef roast. I made a very decadent chocolate cheesecake and a brussel sprout and bacon tart. We decorated the Christmas cake. Katy’s parents and uncle arrived on the 24th and stayed until the 27th.
There was food. Much food. The table was groaning under the weight of all the meat, cheese, condiments, pickles and sweet stuff. The pantry is still full of biscuits, booze and yet more condiments and chutneys. I’d made this crazy plan for the big Christmas meal, and yet dinner was still one hour late. The food went down a treat though. The turkey was lovely and the sausages we bought from the market stall were really, really nice. I’m amazed that 5 people managed to eat 3 kilos of turkey, 1 kilo of beef, 2 kilos of ham, 18 sausages and a pound of bacon in just a few days, not even counting the sausage rolls, scotch eggs and pork pies… Like I said, too much food!
Katy’s Christmas cake, at last reckoning, cost about £50 of raw materials. It is made with about 2 pounds of various dried fruit, half a dozen eggs, a pound of sugar and 3/4 of a bottle of Cointreau. Then you add the royal icing and various decorations and you get a cake that will stun a small moose with the sugar/fat/booze trifecta. Katy already has several orders for such cakes next year. Might be an interesting sideline :) I have to say that I’m rather proud of that cake because, even though Katy supervised and directed, I’m the one that made it because the beastie, generous creature that he is, had incubated and amplified the cold bug into something that really hit Katy hard.
She got this nasty chest cold that turned into a worse ear infection. The chest cold part kept her awake for days on end because she was coughing so much during the night. It was so bad that I ended up sleeping on the couch a couple of nights. I’d been sleeping on the guest bed until her parents came but we found that she was tossing and turning and couching so much that it would have been useless for me to stay in bed if I wanted to get any sort of sleep. She was scheduled to work over the holidays but her employers, charming people that they are, called her unreliable because she called in sick one day and cancelled her overtime. Have I mentioned just how much I like her employers? They’re really nice people. I hope they DIAF, but that’s just wishful thinking. Anyway, the coughing went away, but when blood-tinged stuff started leaking out of her ears, it was time to call the emergency docs on boxing day to get some antibiotics. She’s back at work today but she’s still not fully recovered. Her hearing is still partially gone and her sinuses are still giving her massive headaches :(
Still, the holiday spirit made an appearance. In between bouts of eating and drinking, we opened lots of presents, wore silly hats and played with the beastie. We’d decided to make the holidays a TV-free zone as much as possible so we plugged in the ipod and listened to oldies and carols.
Santa was generous, given the times. I got salt and pepper mills, some Robert Welch signature knives and a knife sharpener, a Le Creuset cast-iron casserole, some chocolate, a new cologne and a book. I also got lots of DVDs, and a shiny-shiny new DVD player that can read divX files off a USB stick :D Katy and I bought ourselves Bud ducks. She got the bestest present ever though. She got a tin!!! OMGWTFBBQ!!!eleventyone! She also got lots of l’Occitane stuff, some chocolate DVDs, more ducks, two terrapin garden statues and a really funky japanese-themed statue. But the tin really was the most commented-on gift :)
Beastie, again, was spoiled with presents though, this year, he actually preferred to play with them than with the box they came in. Most of them make noise, but that’s ok cause it’s not too aggressively cheerful. Mel and Stu actually spent more time playing with some of his toys than Ben did :)
We had a few quiet days between the end of Christmas and going to to Leicester for new years. I had a doctor’s appointment and the beastie had his immunization jabs. We took down the Christmas decorations because, without the mountain of gifts to keep him away from the tree, the beastie discovered that he had direct access to it and was always trying to eat parts of it. The drive up to Leics was uneventful, even though the weather was starting to turn ugly a bit.
Things in Leicester were pretty much of the same. We managed to sneak some adult time and went to see Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. Both were very good and I’m surprised that I enjoyed the Holmes movie. I was expecting to hate it, but surprisingly I didn’t. MORE FOOD! Jeminie and Stu came over for new year’s day. Katy’s uncle Michael and auntie Minal came to pick Jeminie up later in the evening and they said hello to the beastie.
We brought in the new year playing Carcassonne and then went to bed. We watched some of the fireworks from Katy’s bedroom window. The mood turned a bit weird just after new years day. There was a strained vibe in the air and it never really went away. The oldies were alternatively sniping or sulky. I think people were overdone. Katy’s been stressing about her back to work meetings and the beastie has been a handful since we’ve been back. He’s gotten used to constant attention and always being picked up and always having food thrown at him by the oldies to keep him quiet. It’s back to the normal grind now and he’s less than thrilled.
Speaking of the beastie, he now has almost a full set of teeth and is almost at the point of standing up by himself and taking a few steps. He can cruise along furniture and can stand up if he’s holding on to something. He can also climb stairs like nobody’s business and seems to derive much glee from doing so.
All in all, we had a good time. A much better time than I expected to have, and a much better time than we had this time last year. I still remember having a mental breakdown and crying in the front room with Pam asking us when we’d be ready for dinner. So yeah. Less tears, more laughts.
Still too much food. I can say that I am truly processed-pork-product’ed out.
Pictures and videos online: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/xmas_2009/
A pune, or play on words, for the new year
Sadly, my year started not with a bang but a whimper.
Merry Fucking Christmas
Source: The Guardian
At the time of writing, it’s not clear whether the 2009 Christmas No 1 will be The Climb by Joe McElderry, or Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine. I’ve just done my bit to inch the latter closer to the top spot by downloading it – something I’d resisted doing until now because I initially thought there was something a bit embarrassing about the campaign. After all, as every other internet smartarse pointed out, both tracks are owned by Sony BMG – so no matter which one sells the most, Simon Cowell wins. In other words, even by raging against the machine, you’re somehow raging within it.
But profit isn’t the point – or at least it’s not the reason I downloaded it. For one thing, I happen to think Killing in the Name is an excellent song, so I’ve already got something out of it. Most importantly, it contains genuine emotion. Even if the climactic repeated howls of “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” put you in mind of a teenager loudly refusing to tidy his bedroom – as opposed to a masked anarchist hurling petrol bombs at the riot squad – there is at least an authentic human sentiment being expressed. Zack de la Rocha is audibly pissed off.
Compare this to the pissweak vocal doodle that is Joe McElderry’s X Factor single. For a song whose lyrics ostensibly document an attempt to gather the spiritual strength to overcome adversity and thereby attain enlightenment, The Climb is about as inspiring as a Lion bar. It’s a listless announcement on a service station Tannoy; an advert for buttons; a fart in a clinic; a dot on a spreadsheet. Listening to it from beginning to end is like watching a bored cleaner methodically wiping a smudge from a Formica worksurface.
But then nobody’s buying The Climb in order to actually listen to it. They’re buying it out of sedated confusion, pushing a button they’ve been told will make them feel better. It’s the sound of the assisted suicide clinic, and it doesn’t deserve to be No 1 this Christmas.
This isn’t mere pop snobbery, by the way. I’d rather see Girls Aloud at No 1 than Editors. But The Climb is a lame cover version of a lame Miley Cyrus song. If X Factor can’t be arsed to do better than that, its grip on the yuletide charts deserves to be broken.
Anyway, while I’m happy for Rage Against the Machine to be enjoying the sales and publicity, I can’t help thinking we could’ve organised a slightly better protest ourselves. Chances are the X Factor will try to kick back extra hard next year – perhaps by actually releasing a song with a melody in it – so it’s best to start planning the resistance now.
The temptation might be to pour a lot of time and effort into creating a catchy anti-X Factor anthem, but the smartest counter-move would be to release something short, cheap and throwaway that isn’t even a proper song at all. I propose a track called Simon Cowell: Shit for Ears, which consists of a couple of eight-year-olds droning the phrase “Simon Cowell, shit for ears” four times in a row in the most deliberately tuneless manner possible. It should last only about 15 seconds or so. Quick enough to register; brief enough not to outstay its welcome.
Then we release it online at the lowest price possible. What’s the bare minimum you can charge and still be eligible for a chart position? It could be as little as 2p. Because the track is just recorded on to a cheap mic, and released without the assistance of any record label, 100% of the profits go to charity.
Dot-eyed CGI judge and omnipresent hair product spokeswoman Cheryl Cole recently complained that the campaign against McElderry’s single was “mean”, adding “If that song – or should I say campaign – by an American group is our Christmas No 1, I’ll be gutted for him and our charts.”
She’s missing the point. It’s not mean: it’s funny. If the Christmas No 1 turns out to be an angry, confrontational rock track that concludes with an explosion of f-words, it’ll be precisely the shot in the arm the charts have been sorely lacking the last few years: something that puts a genuine smile on the face of millions of people; sensitive people, thoughtful people; people alienated by the stifling cloud of grinning mechanical pap farted into their faces on a weekly basis by cocky, clattering, calculating talent shows such as X Factor. It would give these people hope. Maybe only in a very small and silly way, but still: a tiny spoonful of hope. And what could be more Christmassy than that?
Ho Ho hrmph
I’m feeling very bipolar these days.
There are only 4 days until xmas, and part of me is happy about that. But not as big a part as I’d like. There’s too much angst in the air. I spent all of yesterday cooking xmas fare. I made a beautiful maple syrup bone-in ham and a really tasty beef roast. We have food and drink to feed a small army. All the presents are wrapped and the house looks very festive. I should be basking in all of it. I should be looking forward to the holidays and time off from work and being with family.
Thing is though, I can’t stop thinking about bad juju. The beastie has a cold – as young beasties do – but he’s being a handful and both Katy and I are so very very tired of having to deal with screaming-baby-at-mealtime. It’s becoming a bit too much these days. This too shall pass but, damnit, it’s not passing quickly enough at the moment. I feel guilty about wanting to go to work on Monday morning just to be able to get some quiet time after weekends like this past one. I’m getting over my cold, but much slower than I usually do. I’ve been getting sick more often than I normally do recently as well, and that’s a slight worry. Katy’s picked up what the beastie has and she’s still in the rough part of it, so she’s not feeling grand.
Her work situation isn’t going to get better any time sooner, which is also a continuous cause for concern. Her employers are, for lack of a better word, right fucking bastards. She’s been made to feel guilty any time she takes time off, so now she’s continuously on the knife edge of exhaustion and I don’t see how things are going to get better any time soon. The holidays aren’t going to help a lot either, cause she has to go in to work for xmas cover for a few hours every day. She needs a vacation – but we don’t have the time or the money to be able to do anything. And with the peanut in tow, it wouldn’t be as relaxing as she needs either. So we’re caught between a rock and a hard place. I’d love for her to be able to tell them to take the job and shove it, because they’ve gone out of their way to be unpleasant all throughout her maternity leave and return to work period.
I’m pretty sure that her part-time hours are going to be reviewed to full-time ones. If that happens, after factoring in childcare costs, it basically means that she’d be working full-time and clearing about £100 a month. Full-time hard work for basically nothing. I think I’d prefer her to quit, if that were the case, but that puts us in another difficult situation because it’s better for the beastie to be around other kids than to stay at home all the time. Having said that, we’d need to seriously rework our spending if we were to send him to nursery part-time if Katy weren’t working. It could probably be doable, but it’d be tight, and probably very stressful.
So yeah. Between lack of sleep and disturbed sleep when possible, money stress, job stress, family stress, and stress about being so stressed, the holidays aren’t looking as rosy as I’d want/need them to be. Trying to put on a brave face and being gung-ho cheery sometimes works, and sometimes feels fake and strained. I’m sure that I’m seeing the world through gloom-coloured glasses at the moment and that things are probably a lot better than I see them. I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I think that something fundamental needs to change. I just wish I knew what. Onwards to therapy.
24 days to Christmas!
The beastie wasn’t feeling all that great this weekend. His temperature spiked on Saturday night and has been up and down since, and our nights have been less than peaceful. Still, he seems to have had a better day today so hopefully he’s starting to get on top of whatever bug he’s picked up.
Sunday was a truly shit day, weather-wise, so we spent it inside putting up the Christmas tree. I had a helper (though he was more interested in trying to eat everything in sight so we did most of the trimming while he was taking a nap).
I’m amazed that the tree has been up for two days, so far, and the cats haven’t been at it (yet!). Still, go tree!
Just cause I can
Edit: In case the video goes away, which it surely will after a while, here are some screencaps:
[Recipe] Stuffed turkey breast
I tried this last weekend, as a practice run for our xmas roast.
Start with a 2.5 kg turkey breast from our local butcher and cut it open.
Stuff it with 500g of sausage meat and one envelope of Paxo stuffing.
Roll it and tie it back together and season with pepper and rosemary.
Top it with latticed bacon and give it a good glug of lemon-infused olive oil and leave it overnight in the fridge.
The following morning, put it in a roasting pan, add about an inch of water to the pan and put two large pats of butter on top of the roast to keep it moist while cooking.
Make a tent out of foil and place it over the turkey breast to hold in heat for even cooking. Remove it during the last hour of cooking for a nice golden brown colour.
Check the water level periodically and add more water if needed.
Cook in a pre-heated oven at 170oC
The typical turkey breast cooking times for thawed turkey breast in a conventional oven are:
* 2 to 3 pounds – 1.5 to 2 hours
* 4 to 6 pounds – 2.5 to 3 hours
* 7 to 8 pounds – 3 to 4 hours
Cook until the internal meat temperature is above 165oF and the juices run clear. (Took us about 2.5 hours in a fan-assisted oven)
A pictorial post
The beastie was feeling a lot better yesterday (he’d been running a bit of a fever for the past few days) so we were able to go out and about for a while.
We went to Scottsdales to start buying some Christmas decorations. Yes, I know it’s still early, but we’ve made a deal to not put anything up until Guy Fawkes has passed, and the tree can’t go up until December. Besides, it’s fun and the beastie seems to really enjoy garden centre Christmas displays.
Which brings us to this.
Who the hell thought disembodied, shrunken Santa heads would make for good tree ornaments? I mean, wtf?!?? Just look at the eyes of the one in the first picture. Doesn’t it just say “please, kill me! I beseech you, let this torment end?”
Then, there was this.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Meerkats. I think that Aleksandr Orlov and Compare the Meerkats is one of the best publicity campaigns I’ve seen in a very long time. But what the hell do Meerkats have to do with Christmas???
But there is a happy ending.
The beastie, he is getting very excited about Christmas.