Christmas, Families and Food

Christmas went off without a hitch.  As per usual, I had over catered.  If an additional ten people had knocked on the door, we could have fed them without even having to think about it. The mud cake looked fantastic, the marmalade, herb and chilli leg of pork looked so good my daughter took a photo of it, the beef was leaking just enough blood and the chooks, complete with pine nut stuffing oozing out of the end, were plump and tasty.  The trays of food just kept coming…

Although today I tried the “if everyone had of turned up, I think we would have got it exactly right!”  Number one son pointed out that if the four missing males (late teens/20 year olds and one boyfriend of a sister) had of turned up, there still would have been enough food to feed a small army.  In fact, he paused to point out that our catering to fourteen far exceeded the amount of food that the other side of the family had done and they had twenty plus people to lunch.

Oh well.  It’s Christmas and no one is ever going to starve at my place.  And surely that is what it’s all about.  Abundance.  An abundance of everything.  Food, love, gifts, champagne…   And at the end of the day, we do abundance quite well.

The squeeze and I had worked our ass off the day/night before and I’d been up at 7 am to put the pork on.  It was the first Christmas where we actually spent the day together.  It was the first time his family had been to my home.  It was the first time some of our children had met.  I was nervous and tried to stay away from the champagne for a while but suddenly, the harridan changed plans and was bringing kid three.

Yeah.  That was going to happen over my dead body.  We had already discussed it after she pushed her way into the birthday breakfast and proceeded to take over.  There wasn’t a hope in hell that she was walking through my door.  And I was annoyed that she didn’t just stick to the plans that had obviously been discussed because I could see the squeeze’s stress levels rise while on the phone.

Of course that was probably due to the thought circling in his head like a shark; that I would wig out.  As it was, I tried to keep my anger in check but the reality was suddenly I am left alone to do all the last minute things and a little fearful that I’ll be there on my own when his family start turning up.  So I skulled a few quick champagnes - like there was no tomorrow; painfully aware that I would be teetering on the edge between getting smashed and making a total dick of myself and alleviating nerves.

Although quite a few of my glasses sacrificed themselves in the name of “dampening nerves” (some I’m sure just leapt to their death from my hand), I am eternally grateful that I had the good sense to buy good champagne – and today I am fine, other than being tired.  Of course the squeeze has repeatedly teased me about the sacrificial glasses and being smashed.  Luckily, his family had all left by the time I reached "staggering stage". 

The no show of the sisters boyfriend and brother’s adult children didn’t dampen our day; it just reinforced the fact that families are difficult and in the breakdown of the day this morning, we were eternally grateful that our children each seem to like us.