The Christmas Thread

Christmas and BBQ season are the worst period in the year for food poisoning. Be careful folks .

Spare a thought for Samaritan Purse's Operation Christmas Child, an organisation with which I have an involvement, this Christmas. This year is the tenth year of the operation in Ireland and Ireland alone sent over a quarter of a million Christmas shoe boxes, mainly to children in Eastern Europe but also to Africa.

You can download a form here and further information is available here. The closing date for submission of boxes is November 11 so get cracking on them. You can drop them off to a host of places around the country including all 'Curves' gyms.

cactus flower wrote:

johnfás wrote:

Anyone gone wild lately and not had turkey for Christmas dinner? We had duck last year, which was delightful.

Three years ago we had a goose, bought from a neighbour. I had never cooked goose before, and didn't fully understand the implications in terms of fattiness. At about 11 o'clock when I went into the kitchen I was met by a tidal wave of shiny slipperiness that was oozing out from under the oven door, slid backwards and capapulted from one end of the room to the other flat on by back with an - unspilled - tray of drinks in my hands.

That`s post of the millenium not to mind the post of the month.

johnfás wrote:

Spare a thought for Samaritan Purse's Operation Christmas Child, an organisation with which I have an involvement, this Christmas. This year is the tenth year of the operation in Ireland and Ireland alone sent over a quarter of a million Christmas shoe boxes, mainly to children in Eastern Europe but also to Africa.

You can download a form here and further information is available here. The closing date for submission of boxes is November 11 so get cracking on them. You can drop them off to a host of places around the country including all 'Curves' gyms.

Onto that Jonfas.

Aragon wrote:

johnfás wrote:

Spare a thought for Samaritan Purse's Operation Christmas Child, an organisation with which I have an involvement, this Christmas. This year is the tenth year of the operation in Ireland and Ireland alone sent over a quarter of a million Christmas shoe boxes, mainly to children in Eastern Europe but also to Africa.

You can download a form here and further information is available here. The closing date for submission of boxes is November 11 so get cracking on them. You can drop them off to a host of places around the country including all 'Curves' gyms.

Onto that Jonfas.

I`ve done that as well a couple of times. Highly recommend it. It`s great crack.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I'm very concerned about the eggs in the recipe Aragon. I didn't think eggs could be preserved like that.

So does the alcohol preserve the eggs ?

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I'm very concerned about the eggs in the recipe Aragon. I didn't think eggs could be preserved like that.

They're cooked, EVM, so they're okay.

Quote :

Kate P wrote:
We don't even wait until the next day to fry it. Calories upon calories on Christmas day.

Respec' ! You must be mid-day Christmas dinner people, I suppose - to be able to fit in two servings in the day?

Not at all, Aragon!

We have a huge breakfast after church on Christmas morning - about twelve by the time everyone gets out of bed and arrives. That lasts until mid afternoon, by which time I go upstairs with a book or go for a walk and the 'men' watch the most recent daft dvd or listen to the most recent daft cd. Anyone in both families who is around (my sister and her husband and daughter stayed with us last Christmas and all my brothers always come) and Husband's entire family descend upon us.

At around 7 we have dinner with the mother-in-law who is an amazing cook.

Real Christmas for me is Christmas Eve. A number of years ago my aunt was in a relationship with a wonderful man who arrived one Christmas Eve in the middle of a storm and an electricity black-out with the most beautiful hamper. We were all sitting in candle light at the fire in the 'parlour,' feeling a little sorry for ourselves and the prospect of a dark, cold and dinner-free Christmas.

The arrival of this man and the hamper changed the mood completely. We had a terrific time and ever since then all of my family meet at my mother's and do more or less the same on Christmas Eve - and it means we can be with husbands and in-laws on Christmas day. It's also more or less the only time of the year that I ever have a glass of wine. The smell is enough for me, sadly but I play a mean sloshed Jenga, aided and abetted by my mother's fried pudding and custard.

That poor Santa whom we remember very fondly every year, now has Alzheimer's and lives thousands of miles away with his own family.

Heaven knows I've done my best to pretend it's not happening. I've tuned out the Christmas carols in shops, looked churlishly at shop assistants stocking shelves with Christmas goodies, sneered at 3 for 2 offers and rolled my eyes at tinsel in November..

...but last night on Grafton Street there was something about the man with the trumpet, the twinkling of the lights and the couples arm in arm that melted my heart. I found myself no longer walking briskly to the carpark but dallying.

So this evening, unexpectedly at home instead of somewhere else I've switched on the everpresent fairy lights on the dresser and plugged in the fairy lights in the big vase full of baubles. There's a Christmas tree-scented candle lighting in the window and am resisting the urge to clamber into the attic for the seasonal and Christmas decorations. I've swopped the book on the recipe-book stand for 'Nigella's Christmas', a recent gift from my sister-in-law, open on page 30-31 with a glossy picture of a bounteous welcome table, resplendent with clove-studded ham. I've cleared the fridge in anticipation of tart home-made cranberry sauce and red onion marmelade and have the big porcelain mixing bowl out, ready to steep the fruit for the Christmas cake.

Christmas - take me, I'm yours.

Kate P wrote:

Christmas - take me, I'm yours.

You hoe hoe hoe...

I'm ignoring it until December 24th, my yearly panic. December is the time of year I go out of my way to get put in a coma by something. I'm going to try electrocution this year...

Aragon, this is my completely original brownbread coffee cake as promised on another thread whose name I can't remember. I found the recipe - it was invented on Good Friday of this year when I had some leftover brown scones that I wanted to use up.

This is how it worked for me...

Preheat the oven to 180 and grease a springform tin - line the bottom.

Make 6oz brown bread crumbs and soak with 3 tbs irel.

In another bowl cream 6oz butter with 6oz soft brown sugar.
Beat in 4 eggs.

Add in the sticky breadcrumbs, 6oz plain flour, 2tsp baking powder and 4oz (100gr pack) of whizzed up walnuts.

Spoon the whole lot into the tin and bake for about 40 mins or until done. Release and allow to cool.

To ice...
Whizz another 4oz walnuts.
Cream 8oz butter, and 12 oz icing sugar (this looks like a lot, maybe it was too much...) add a splash of Irel (would kahlua be good here, if you had it?) and stir in the walnuts. Smear generously over the top.

Kate P wrote:

Aragon, this is my completely original brownbread coffee cake as promised on another thread whose name I can't remember. I found the recipe - it was invented on Good Friday of this year when I had some leftover brown scones that I wanted to use up.

This is how it worked for me...

Preheat the oven to 180 and grease a springform tin - line the bottom.

Make 6oz brown bread crumbs and soak with 3 tbs irel.

In another bowl cream 6oz butter with 6oz soft brown sugar.
Beat in 4 eggs.

Add in the sticky breadcrumbs, 6oz plain flour, 2tsp baking powder and 4oz (100gr pack) of whizzed up walnuts.

Spoon the whole lot into the tin and bake for about 40 mins or until done. Release and allow to cool.

To ice...
Whizz another 4oz walnuts.
Cream 8oz butter, and 12 oz icing sugar (this looks like a lot, maybe it was too much...) add a splash of Irel (would kahlua be good here, if you had it?) and stir in the walnuts. Smear generously over the top.

That sounds delicious - coffee takes a rich recipe.

Could I ask if the two threads could be merged? merged - mod I'm as a six year old about christmas - was going to post a great christmas short story in 3 instalments plus a few other items over the next few weeks to help get us all worked up for Santa. There's only so far I can let my socialism go, I'm afraid. Somethings are just too much fun for that

Consider it done.

That's you sorted for this year then.

yours,
Santa

toxic avenger wrote:

Kate P wrote:

Christmas - take me, I'm yours.

You hoe hoe hoe...

I'm ignoring it until December 24th, my yearly panic. December is the time of year I go out of my way to get put in a coma by something. I'm going to try electrocution this year...

Sounds suspiciously someone I know who dashes to town to get to the shops half an hour before they close on Christmas Eve and invariably ends up in some accident or scrape or other.

Electrocution sounds novel though. What coma-inducing tactics has Toxic McScrooge previously indulged in on his quest to become the Ghost of Christmas past?

Kate P wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

Kate P wrote:

Christmas - take me, I'm yours.

You hoe hoe hoe...

I'm ignoring it until December 24th, my yearly panic. December is the time of year I go out of my way to get put in a coma by something. I'm going to try electrocution this year...

Sounds suspiciously someone I know who dashes to town to get to the shops half an hour before they close on Christmas Eve and invariably ends up in some accident or scrape or other.

Electrocution sounds novel though. What coma-inducing tactics has Toxic McScrooge previously indulged in on his quest to become the Ghost of Christmas past?

Whiskey and painkillers was an accidental favourite, but it only ended up with me being very sleepy for a day. I also contemplated throwing myslf in front of a bus, but the traffic's so bad on my road that they're never going fast enough. I figure God wants to punish me...

Kate P wrote:

Consider it done.

That's you sorted for this year then.

yours,
Santa

Whee! Will all our other recipes be coming over too (the old thread was called 'the best christmas pud ever')

toxic avenger wrote:

Kate P wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

Kate P wrote:

Christmas - take me, I'm yours.

You hoe hoe hoe...

I'm ignoring it until December 24th, my yearly panic. December is the time of year I go out of my way to get put in a coma by something. I'm going to try electrocution this year...

Sounds suspiciously someone I know who dashes to town to get to the shops half an hour before they close on Christmas Eve and invariably ends up in some accident or scrape or other.

Electrocution sounds novel though. What coma-inducing tactics has Toxic McScrooge previously indulged in on his quest to become the Ghost of Christmas past?

Whiskey and painkillers was an accidental favourite, but it only ended up with me being very sleepy for a day. I also contemplated throwing myslf in front of a bus, but the traffic's so bad on my road that they're never going fast enough. I figure God wants to punish me...

I figure you have very little faith in him - if he's as all-powerful as his reputation suggests, he wouldn't keep missing.

Throwing yourself in front of a bus is an ugly way to go. Fortunately it happens only in the imaginations of mothers who want their teenage boys to change their underwear more often. Surely you don't want to end up in that category? - where everyone at the funeral will be thinking, "I wonder was he wearing clean underpants?" while the priest is recalling your finer moments.

Kate P wrote:

I figure you have very little faith in him - if he's as all-powerful as his reputation suggests, he wouldn't keep missing.

Throwing yourself in front of a bus is an ugly way to go. Fortunately it happens only in the imaginations of mothers who want their teenage boys to change their underwear more often. Surely you don't want to end up in that category? - where everyone at the funeral will be thinking, "I wonder was he wearing clean underpants?" while the priest is recalling your finer moments.

No, I don't want to go, just to by-pass tack-fest and the accompanying inter-necine warfare. I guessed 20MPH would be about right...

Hard to feel the Christmas cheer when the kids from down the road have just burned what looks like a child's pram outside my window. Oh well, as soon as we get off I'm legging it back to Wexford to drink with the lads and lassies from home and enjoy some R&R between catching up on study. Though my girlfriend wants me to spend a few days up here as we'll finally have a chance to get some privacy with all my flatmates gone back home.

evercloserunion wrote:

Hard to feel the Christmas cheer when the kids from down the road have just burned what looks like a child's pram outside my window. Oh well, as soon as we get off I'm legging it back to Wexford to drink with the lads and lassies from home and enjoy some R&R between catching up on study. Though my girlfriend wants me to spend a few days up here as we'll finally have a chance to get some privacy with all my flatmates gone back home.

They're burning prams next to UCD now ? I'd hate to think what they're getting up to in Finglas. There must be a bit of mulled wine cheer on the streets of Dublin now this time of the year all the same ?

Did you ever eat roasted chestnuts ? I wonder what they're like ...

Auditor #9 wrote:

evercloserunion wrote:

Hard to feel the Christmas cheer when the kids from down the road have just burned what looks like a child's pram outside my window. Oh well, as soon as we get off I'm legging it back to Wexford to drink with the lads and lassies from home and enjoy some R&R between catching up on study. Though my girlfriend wants me to spend a few days up here as we'll finally have a chance to get some privacy with all my flatmates gone back home.

They're burning prams next to UCD now ? I'd hate to think what they're getting up to in Finglas. There must be a bit of mulled wine cheer on the streets of Dublin now this time of the year all the same ?

Did you ever eat roasted chestnuts ? I wonder what they're like ...

I don't live in UCD. I live in student accommodation just down the road from some of the more notorious North Dublin inner city council flats (stupid idea or what?!)

Not too far away on Grafton St and O'Connell St however, you can kind of feel the Christmas cheer start to kick in. The lights have that effect I suppose. Dublin is always quite ambient around Christmas time, and rings back memories (as I'm sure it does for most) of being taken into the big city as a child for the Christmas shopping. Still, it's hard to soak in the atmosphere on O'Connell St when you know you're only passing through on your way to a much less pleasant place and to be perfectly honest you're rather nervous.

I just can't wait to get home. My mam loves Christmas, and for her birthday a couple of years back which is nowhere near Christmas we threw her a surprise Christmas birthday party.

evercloserunion wrote:

I just can't wait to get home. My mam loves Christmas, and for her birthday a couple of years back which is nowhere near Christmas we threw her a surprise Christmas birthday party.

- That's cute! I like it a lot too and often find myself singing White Christmas for my own birthday in June. There are plenty boring people who ostracise you for it though. I'm glad your mam's condition is celebrated outside the closet.

Don't go breaking the bad news which you found on the internet to her this year though --

seanm123 wrote:

WSJ:

Santa to lay off 3500 elves, 2/3rds of his staff, and shuttering 70% of his toy making operations. The remaining staff is mostly administrative kept around to manage the shut down,their pleas to Congress are going unanswered since the postal service due to layoffs is no longer picking up the mail on rural routes.

When asked why he was doing this, Santa replied "F**k this economy. No TARP, and FED won't let me become a bank holding company. It's always cold up here. Do you know what the energy bills were like when Morgan Stanley cornered the heating oil market! You can't run a proper nuclear power plant on ice you know. Now they won't roll my CP before Thanksgiving. Screw 'em."

We talked to several elves about to go unemployed. Adam the Dollmaker:

"What are we supposed to do now? Go to the Eskimo Casino and become dealers? Who's going to play the Beancounters?"

Julie the Doll Dressmaker:

"I always thought if things got tough I could go back to Iceland. Yeah, that's gonna happen, now. I'm checking on jobs for dog grooming in Sweden right now."

Tough time, indeed. But is Santa hopeful about the future?

"Hell no. The Easter Bunny is having trouble getting money for the Easter egg runup at his ranch, and the Tooth Fairy's Tooth Backed Securities have CDS rates at like 10000 bps. This thing is going into a hole. I might have to eat Donner this winter."

itulip

Auditor #9 wrote:

evercloserunion wrote:

Hard to feel the Christmas cheer when the kids from down the road have just burned what looks like a child's pram outside my window. Oh well, as soon as we get off I'm legging it back to Wexford to drink with the lads and lassies from home and enjoy some R&R between catching up on study. Though my girlfriend wants me to spend a few days up here as we'll finally have a chance to get some privacy with all my flatmates gone back home.

They're burning prams next to UCD now ? I'd hate to think what they're getting up to in Finglas. There must be a bit of mulled wine cheer on the streets of Dublin now this time of the year all the same ?

Did you ever eat roasted chestnuts ? I wonder what they're like ...

They're nice! There was always a stall selling them outside the British Museum, and even the smell is welcome on a cold day in London.

ibis wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

evercloserunion wrote:

Hard to feel the Christmas cheer when the kids from down the road have just burned what looks like a child's pram outside my window. Oh well, as soon as we get off I'm legging it back to Wexford to drink with the lads and lassies from home and enjoy some R&R between catching up on study. Though my girlfriend wants me to spend a few days up here as we'll finally have a chance to get some privacy with all my flatmates gone back home.

They're burning prams next to UCD now ? I'd hate to think what they're getting up to in Finglas. There must be a bit of mulled wine cheer on the streets of Dublin now this time of the year all the same ?

Did you ever eat roasted chestnuts ? I wonder what they're like ...

They're nice! There was always a stall selling them outside the British Museum, and even the smell is welcome on a cold day in London.

Can you compare them to anything common ? Can you describe the taste - like nutloaf

Auditor #9 wrote:

ibis wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

evercloserunion wrote:

Hard to feel the Christmas cheer when the kids from down the road have just burned what looks like a child's pram outside my window. Oh well, as soon as we get off I'm legging it back to Wexford to drink with the lads and lassies from home and enjoy some R&R between catching up on study. Though my girlfriend wants me to spend a few days up here as we'll finally have a chance to get some privacy with all my flatmates gone back home.

They're burning prams next to UCD now ? I'd hate to think what they're getting up to in Finglas. There must be a bit of mulled wine cheer on the streets of Dublin now this time of the year all the same ?

Did you ever eat roasted chestnuts ? I wonder what they're like ...

They're nice! There was always a stall selling them outside the British Museum, and even the smell is welcome on a cold day in London.

Can you compare them to anything common ? Can you describe the taste - like nutloaf

They're all over central London in the Winter. They smell very sweet, but I've never tasted them myself....