Christmas 2013

Christmas was lovely. It was white.

It started, as usual, with sausage rolls and buttered panettone for breakfast as we opened presents. I will never get too old to lose the joy of giving and receiving presents... I mean - come on! The day ended with a different sort of Christmas dinner. I was bored with turkey and the other usuals, so after the soup, I served a festive Italian salad with arugula, goat cheese, pomegranates, and Soma's delicious lightly candied pecans chopped into it. The main course was a wild boar bolognese sauce over pasta. Gooooooood. For dessert, my mother made her traditional killer trifle. Mmmmm. I'd also made a big Christmas fruitcake a couple of weeks previously and my mother and I had a scream making little fondant figures for the top. The donkey looked like a giant rabbit originally. Joseph looked like Genghis Khan, so fierce he looked like he'd rather eat Baby Jesus than, you know, take care of him, and hide him from Herod, etc. Actually, he could have been Herod in disguise.






I bought this little wooden tree for my desk at work a couple of years ago. The yellow wooden star on the top disappeared quickly. I didn't want to use the tree with out it, so this year I looked for - and found - a lovely German-made, unpainted wooden star at Flatirons, the fantastic gift store on Jarvis, just north of the St. Lawrence Market. I painted it white and put it on the top, and it's much prettier and more delicate than the original. Score! And... it's staying at home.





Over Christmas break, I had some cosy nights in my big wing chair. Next you see the table setting for Christmas day. The snowball candles came from that same fabulous gift store in Apsley. And they burn really well. And there's a new shot of me trying out a new lipstick shade, Clinique's Plushest Punch. That sounds Christmassy! It's odd, I used to avoid red in makeup or clothing; now I embrace it in all things.