Christmas 2020
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Don’t care so much about the food situation nowadays especially not traditional Xmas fare. All about the people you spend the time with.
We will be heading to our friends down south but as they are heading to the old family farm in the Waitaki for Xmas day will meet them there. Will detour through Mackenzie country and pick up some salmon on the way.
Doing a secret Santa type thing and will likely get trashed. Will get an Emerson’s delivery sent ahead of time -
USUALLY my wife would spend the preceding 24 hours prepping for a massive Christmas Day feast that lasts for about a week once you take leftovers into account. Her family are Italian on her Mum's side, bogan on her Dad's, so this finds roots in history; first Christmas I spent with her family (we were going out ~6 months) there was about 15-20 people there. While her Mum was newly split from the alco, it was a massive feast with all the in-laws and, being 130kg, I was happy to ingratiate myself with the Italian side by eating my body weight in meat.
Fast forward to now, and this year it will be at a local pub for $115 a head. A price which I'm happy to pay.
In between her Mum's dementia and her brother's impending divorce, as well as the oldies passing on the last few years, Mrs TA finally decided she wasn't going to put herself through the stress. I don't have to help prep anything or clean up afterwards, and there is no marital stress about my frustration over the cost of the catering bill at home when we just chuck out a solid percentage of it anyway.
Boxing Day we go see friends at their place (or they come to ours), but the story is the same: sensible lunch, bitching about our families, swimming in either of our pools, and then pass out on the lounge in front of the cricket.
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Oh yeah: my side of the family don't do much for Christmas. My Dad loved it but my Mum doesn't care much for it. My brother was usually deployed or posted somewhere away so while we caught up every few years, it wasn't a big deal about the day itself.
Probably forms my views. Boxing Day is the key for me tho maybe this year without hosting it'll be different.
Next Ashes Boxing Day I plan to attend. Whenever that is.
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Very improvised this year. Down in Kent with Mrs Meldrew, her 2 sisters and her Mum and Dad. Likely to be her Mum and Dad's last Christmas so will be an emotional time, but a really happy one as well.
Traditions have grown over the years, but it normally kicks off on December 1 when I buy a bottle of decent whisky and we start making sausage rolls, Christmas cake, & mince pies.
Decorations are done on a chosen afternoon with carols playing and, for some reason, drinking Tia Maria. We also have a number of Christmas films we watch as well. Like to visit markets and soak up the atmosphere and buy little gifts for people.
Christmas Eve to Boxing Day is normally a big family occasion with 12 or more people all in one house. Christmas Eve meal is very special and everyone contributes a dish or something to the meal. Turkey dinner and games until late at night. Vintage Port is decanted before the meal and consumed after it.
Boxing day is always a walk - normally around Leeds Castle if we are in Kent.
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@Victor-Meldrew All sounds pretty good though I’m surprised you can ever remember any of it after all the wine, whiskey, port and Tia Maria.
We usually have a walk on Christmas Day morning, probably on the beach. The kids tried to start a tradition of having a dip in the sea ( a couple of hundred or so people do this on Exmouth beach). Done it once, too bastard cold. So just a walk with the mutts will do. Christmas Eve there will be talk of midnight mass but we won’t go. Not religious in the slightest so why? Boxing Day probably a walk on Dartmoor somewhere and a pub lunch.
Actually I’m quite looking forward to it all this year.
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@Catogrande said in Christmas 2020:
All sounds pretty good though I’m surprised you can ever remember any of it after all the wine, whiskey, port and Tia Maria.
With the exception of Christmas Eve, we don't actually drink all that much in reality over Christmas. I like to push the boat out a little and have 3-4 types of wine with Christmas meal though.
Christmas Eve there will be talk of midnight mass but we won’t go.
When the kids were younger we'd head off to Christingle on Christmas Eve. Aiming to do a Christmas Eve whanau carol service by Zoom this year
Actually I’m quite looking forward to it all this year
I feel weird about this one. Not looking forward to it, but knowing it will all be OK in the end.
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@Catogrande said in Christmas 2020:
Christmas Eve there will be talk of midnight mass but we won’t go.
There's a Tongan Methodist Church Mo'unga Heamoni not far from the Northcote Tavern near where I live. Every Xmas Eve at 6.00 pm the road from the boozer to the church is closed and a flat deck truck with a (very dark) Santa on the back slowly proceeds down to the church followed by the curch choir and oom pah band. Santa throughs out lollies to the kids.
Good fun to watch (from the pub) and the closest I've ever got to midnight mass. The choir then sing in the church till midnight. I've heard them as I have staggered home.
Unfortunately the last few years I have been stuck in the office and missed this. Which is the only bit of Xmas I have actually enjoyed.
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The wife and I try to make Christmas a special time for the boys and we have a few traditions going, some from her childhood some from mine.
Come the 1st December we have the house decorated, big fake Xmas tree complete with a village and train at the bottom. We then go and cut down a real tree to go next to it to give the place a "Christmas" smell.
Christmas eve we'll do a big seafood cook up (wife grew up on seafood in PNG) and I'll generally smoke a brisket or a shoulder to go with it as I'm not a big fan of seafood. We'll then head to our local Catholic church for mass; the wife is Catholic but not particularly religious so this is our yearly trip to church, but it means a lot to her as it's what she did with her (now passed) adoptive parents back in PNG.
We'll then head home and open our "Xmas eve present" - this must be a book, no toys allowed. For Santa we fill the boys stockings up with little presents and they get one big present under the tree. The 7 year old confided in me that he knows Santa isn't real and that it's just me, but said he would keep the secret for his little brothers, so we'll keep doing it for him as well (I mean he benefits massively from the whole deal so was smart enough to make sure it keeps going).
This year things have been thrown up in the air a bit as our 3rd son was born on 12th December, and it wasn't a birth without complications. We've been in and out of hospital since which means we don't have much sorted. My Mum is up from Welly helping out thankfully. For dinner we've decided to just order from 'Woop' (like My Food Bag) which gets delivered on 23rd so we'll see how that goes, but at least that sorts out food on the day. Otherwise we'll keep things pretty low key and try and relax as much as we can given we have a new born in the house again.
Anyway that's enough rambling. Merry Christmas to all on here, it's been some fucking year eh. This place has an awesome little online community going and it's been great coming here to talk shit and try to make sense of everything going on in the world. Hope you all get to relax a bit, flush the dunny on 2020, and look forward to a bit more normalcy in 2021.
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@voodoo said in Christmas 2020:
We will go to my wife's cousins this year for lunch. Should be 40-odd people there, they have a pool and its usually hot, so that's the kids amd their cousins sorted. Food is divided out, this year I have the pork duties again, so will be a 5kg rolled loin with gravy and stuffing, no pressure!
Kids get heaps of presents, not so much for the adults which I'm totally fine with.
Morning before lunch is spent at home - our actual fucking home! - which will be awesome. Small presents for the kids, brekkie, a swim etc.
Cant fucken wait
Oh, and if anyone has any present ideas for a wife of > 15yrs, please shout!
This would appear to have been a premature post. There has been a revolt from the Eastern Suburbs part of the whanau who are now hosting their own Xmas. Even those on the northside are looking like not being able to mingle with us Northern Beaches lepers.
We may be going from 40 extended family to just the 5 of us.
I'm ok with that given its not my extended family anyway, but the wife will be depressed as.
One benefit is that I will get to devour a 5kg rolled pork loin on my own over the break....
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@dogmeat said in Christmas 2020:
The choir then sing in the church till midnight. I've heard them as I have staggered home.
My ex used to sing with the Eton and Windsor Choral society and we went to their traditional Christmas concert at Eton College. Magical memories.
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Not a huge amount further to add aside from the fact I've actually made an effort with my folks pressy this Xmas. A mate of mine who is an artist has done a portrait of the boys and their little siblings at mates rates for me......so watching the folks open their pressy will be as rewarding as the little ones
Also driving back for an "orphans" xmas ( pissup ) with a mate who lives up the road. Head might be a bit sore when I wake up for cricket viewing the next morning.
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Christmas Eve to my MIL
Stay that night, Christmas Day, back home on Boxing Day
Just her, my missus, the dog and meSkiing on the 28th hopefully
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@MiketheSnow said in Christmas 2020:
Christmas Eve to my MIL
Stay that night, Christmas Day, back home on Boxing Day
Just her, my missus, the dog and meSkiing on the 28th hopefully
Whereabouts?
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@Catogrande France obviously.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Christmas 2020:
@dogmeat said in Christmas 2020:
The choir then sing in the church till midnight. I've heard them as I have staggered home.
My ex used to sing with the Eton and Windsor Choral society and we went to their traditional Christmas concert at Eton College. Magical memories.
That sounds really cool. My last choral experience was not successful. Ms Cato’s 6thform choir at the cathedral. I had already lunched very well and stood up/sat down/sang in all the wrong places. Add in that my voice is as flat as a shovel...
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@Catogrande said in Christmas 2020:
@MiketheSnow said in Christmas 2020:
Christmas Eve to my MIL
Stay that night, Christmas Day, back home on Boxing Day
Just her, my missus, the dog and meSkiing on the 28th hopefully
Whereabouts?
Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales
From 06 December 2020
Sean Manley letting rip
