The 365 Days of Christmas: August to December (Part 3)

By R.E. Warfe

A Christmas comedy with crackers, crackling and crack-ups.

Janet organises her Christmasses with the precision of a marching band; from turkey to tinsel, she has it under control… but while she’s making gift tags and Christmas crackers, her family are making other plans.

In this final slice of plum pudding, Janet’s office Christmas party is set for disaster, her family Christmas plans go horribly awry and even her knowledge of Yuletide customs and her repertoire of trifle recipes can’t save her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.E. Warfe
• Release date: Dec 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781925786354

Book preview

Copyright

1 August 2016

Festive insects

We’ve covered a lot of Christmas history, but let us not neglect Christmas entomology: it’s time to talk about Christmas beetles, a kind of scarab beetle with green or yellow iridescent bodies, often seen around Christmas time. They are considered Christmassy because of their glorious metallic sheen¹ and because most people don’t know that they contribute to dieback in gum trees and cause yellow patches in lawns. (They’re more Grinch than elf, but at least they’re pretty.)

P.S. Add July notes to your Christmas letter material.

Nature’s tinsel.

There’s really not very much for me to do for Jeremy’s twenty-first: he’s handling the invitations, the restaurant will do the food and since I have a firm rule that speeches should be either good or short (and preferably both), it won’t take me long to write mine.

2 August 2016

Self-raising flower

Since edible flowers are so fashionable as garnishes right now, why not do a tub of those if you’re thinking about growing presents?² Micro herbs are also in vogue but as I’m not much of a gardener, I’m not sure if they’re special varieties or if you bonsai ordinary varieties or just pick them young. But you could use this question as a litmus test: if you know the answer, you’re probably the right kind of person to grow them successfully and, if you don’t know, stick with sturdy herbs like full-sized mint.³

Rose-merry.

I cooked a huge casserole today and put it in the freezer for our skiing trip. It will travel up safely frozen on Friday night and should be mostly thawed for Saturday. (And then I’ll heat it up, of course. Slightly icy beef bourguignon is just about the worst thing I can think of coming home to after a hard day’s skiing!) 

3 August 2016

Christmas shipping

If you want the cheapest parcel rates to Botswana, it’s time to get posting (although you have until the beginning of September if you’re sending to Switzerland) and you will need parcel wrapping as well as gift wrapping. The easiest and most expensive option is the padded bags the post office sells; the cheapest and greenest option is the padded bags the post office delivers (to your house around some other parcel – keep the packing and reuse it later).

Choose sturdy gift wrap rather than fragile tissue paper and fluffy bows and, if your present is somewhat delicate, do pad it very carefully.⁴

Mind your P.O. queues.⁵

Christmas Day 1970: Finally, it was dinner time, we took our places and Nanna said grace. This was not something we did in our own house but Nanna was a staunch Presbyterian (and was, I believe, the only one in the family who went to church on days other than holy days) and so a fall from grace was not an option. But she did keep it short: her god was a pragmatic deity who did like to be appreciated but who wouldn’t want the vegies to get cold. 

4 August 2016

Bottoms up

Last year, I had a little cocktail party on the deck to celebrate the turning on of the Christmas lights on 1 December. It went well and I think I’ll do it again this year and maybe it will even become a regular event. Here are some jolly cocktails with a Christmas theme (ie, they’re red or green).

Midori Sour

This is lighter in both alcohol and sugar than the standard Midori sour but people seem to like it anyway.

Champagne flute

30ml Midori

30ml lemon juice

soda water

Garnish: slice of lemon, glacé cherry

Pour the Midori into the glass, add the lemon juice, top with soda water and add garnish.

Strawberry Daiquiri

Some people add sugar syrup to this but I don’t think it needs it.

Martini glass

30ml white rum

5 strawberries

5 ice cubes

Garnish: strawberry

Blend the ingredients together, pour into the glass and add garnish.

Mint Cup

Highball glass

peppermint cordial⁶

soda water

Garnish: sprig of mint

Pour the cordial into the glass, top with soda water, and dunk the mint in.

Watermelon Smash

Old-fashioned glass

250ml chopped watermelon

60ml sour cherry juice⁷

5 ice cubes

Garnish: watermelon wedge⁸

Blend the watermelon and pour into the glass, slowly add the cherry juice and then float the ice on top.

And remember, just contemplating throwing a cocktail party is a good excuse to practise some cocktails. 

*

Christmas Day 1970: The combined Amen was like the starting gun for cracking our crackers. All of the kids and half of the adults wore the hats but all the adults took them off as soon as they thought no-one was looking.⁹ I got a plastic whistle and so did Steve and Brian and Felicity, and Uncle Geoff confiscated them almost immediately, which I didn’t think was fair, because Auntie Pat got to keep hers.¹⁰ The jokes, of course, were lame and even I, as an eight-year-old, had heard most of them before (although it would take me a few years more to find the pun in When is a tap not a tap? When it’s dripping).

5 August 2016

The way the Germans do it

Lebkuchen is German gingerbread (with cardamom in it which makes it different to English gingerbread) which is traditionally made in heart shapes. I always make these for Christmas because I love them, the chocolate makes them an indulgent treat that I save for special occasions¹¹ and they keep well, so you can make them in advance and keep them going strong in those lazy, post-Yule days.¹²

Lebkuchen

Makes 3 dozen

Preparation time 1 hour

Start 3 hours ahead

120g butter

1 and 1/3 cups (400g) golden syrup

1 orange

1 lemon

1 lime

3½ cups (520g) plain flour

2 tsp bicarb

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp cocoa

2 tbs milk

4 tbs raspberry jam

185g dark chocolate

2 tsp vegetable oil

Melt the butter and golden syrup together then cool for 10 minutes.

Zest the orange, lemon and lime. Sift the dry ingredients together and stir into the butter mixture with the milk and zest. Cover and stand for 1½ hours.

Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Grease 3 biscuit trays.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until it loses its stickiness. Roll it out until 8mm thick. Cut it into heart shapes and place on trays, 3cm apart. Make small indentations in the middle of the biscuits with the end of a wooden spoon handle and half fill the dents with jam.

Bake the biscuits for 10 minutes until lightly browned. Cool.

Melt the chocolate with the oil, spread it onto the bottoms of the biscuits and leave until set.

*

We went to Baw Baw in a convoy of three cars – you’d think we could fit six people into two cars but there were skis and jackets and a hell of a lot of food. (At one stage, it was looking like I’d have to choose between the lemon biscuits and my mittens but I’m glad to say we fitted everything in.)

6 August 2016

Brussels sprouts

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who think Brussels sprouts are disgusting and those who say, Oh you just aren’t cooking them right! I hate the bastards with a passion¹³ and when I first heard of a substance that some people taste as bitter and some people can’t taste at all, it became clear to me. You see, before this substance was tested, there was no evidence that people tasted things differently: it was entirely possible that you and I experience exactly the same sensations when we eat pears and it might be that you don’t particularly like how they taste and that I do. But now we know that, in at least one case, people are having a physically different experience when they eat. I’m sure that’s what’s going on with Brussels sprouts: those of you who think they are palatable cannot possibly be tasting what I’m tasting. To me, they literally taste like poison and I cannot imagine how someone once tried one and considered it to be food.¹⁴

My antipathy to these nasty little cabbages is so great that I’m reluctant to mention that they’re considered a Christmas dish in Britain, but I must say:

Don’t do it.

If you really have to, make sure they’re optional.

And please shut up about there being nice ways to cook them. We will never believe you and, if you tasted what we taste, you’d realise that they are too horrible to be fixed even with bacon: it’s as pointless as spraying eau de cologne on a skunk.

These are not the vegetables you’re looking for.

My casserole was appreciated at the ski lodge tonight but not because I’d balanced the flavours so well.

Thank God you cooked something soft, said Don after a hard day’s skiing. I don’t have enough energy to chew.

We played a hearty game of canasta last night after tea but I don’t think anyone is up for more than a round of after-dinner mints tonight.

7 August 2016

Pick another card

Nearly as easy as bauble cards are Christmas tree cards. Cut a Christmas tree out of green paper. You can either use a template or fold the paper in half and cut out a jagged triangle shape.¹⁵ Glue it onto the card and add a bit of glitter.¹⁶ If you want to make it fancy, put a star on top.¹⁷

O Tannenbaum.

We skied hard all day, packed our bags and poured our damp, exhausted selves back into the cars for the trip home. Luckily Wendy had plenty of chocolate left over: I’m not sure we would have lasted the journey without it.¹⁸

8 August 2016

Goats of Yule

In Scandinavia, the Christmas gift-bringer was the Yule Goat. This is possibly connected to Thor, the son of Odin and namesake of Thursday, who rode across the sky in a chariot drawn by two goats, but it’s also the last sheaf of grain gathered in the harvest and saved for its magical properties for the Yule festival, and these goats may or may not be connected.

These days, a Christmas fairy or gnome called a julenisse in Norway and Denmark and juletomte in Sweden is more likely to bring the presents.

Yule Goat related activities that you may like to absorb into your own traditions include:

decorating with goats (traditionally made of straw or wood)

hiding a Yule Goat in your neighbours’ house (and when they find it, they hide it in your house)¹⁹

taking a goat with you²⁰ when you go carolling from door to door (and also play pranks and let your audience know that the goat is demanding gifts)

or you could dress like a julenisse in grey, with a long white beard and a red hat.²¹

What gets your goat?

9 August 2016

Bring a plate

If you’re asked to bring a plate²² and you’re looking for cheap options, consider:

hummus with crudité

potato salad

coleslaw²³

baked potatoes with garlic butter

meatballs²⁴

pikelets, buttered, with a delicate slice of strawberry on each

apple tart

rainbow jelly (of which more later).

Make these dishes yourself from scratch and avoid recipes with expensive ingredients and it won’t hurt your pocket too much (but I’m not guaranteeing that it won’t hurt your waistline).

Having a (meat)ball.

Christmas Day 1970: The women ferried out plates buried beneath piles of turkey, ham, gravy,²⁵ peas and five kinds of roast vegetables. I wasn’t much of a meat-and-three-veg girl²⁶ so I didn’t understand why this was supposed to be so special but I felt everyone else’s excitement (and I did like the potatoes).

Naturally there were seconds and even thirds. (Nanna had, of course, catered to allow for this.) Just as traditional were the remarks about why we were eating a hot roast on such a hot day but it was good-natured banter and no-one really considered any other option. It was Christmas, it was turkey: it was as simple as that.

10 August 2016

The fruits of the sea

If you’re doing the traditional Australian seafood Christmas, working out your menu and ordering your sea creatures in advance, then picking them up on Christmas Eve is definitely the best plan if you’re keen on the popular favourites like lobster and oysters. But you can trundle down to your fishmonger on Christmas Eve and ask what they’ve got that’s good, thus giving yourself an opportunity to work with the catch of the day. Either way, take your esky with you, and make room in the coldest part of your fridge for the incoming fish before you leave home.²⁷

Something’s fishy.

Hannah has volunteered to make bunting for her brother’s party. Jeremy insisted that she do it in the colours of the restaurant (orange and green is what he said but terracotta and cactus is more accurate) and she agreed readily but had a devious gleam in her eye. I think she’s up to something.

11 August 2016

Candy canes

A candy cane is a hard peppermint lolly made in the shape of a walking stick and painted with barbershop stripes of red and white. There is a story that it was given to children in Cologne Cathedral in 1670²⁸ and that it represents the crook of the shepherds of the nativity²⁹ but there’s another story that it signifies St Nicholas’s bishoply crosier, and neither story explains the stripes. What is certain is that candy canes have been around for centuries.

Candy canes are sturdy and distinctive so you can decorate with them; put them on the tree; have a glass of them on your desk at work; stick them into otherwise ordinary cupcakes; or use them as a garnish on Christmas cocktails.³⁰ They’re cheap so you can tie one onto a Small Present of any kind to make it suddenly Christmassy and they’re very easy to draw so you can use them as a design for your own cards and wrapping paper even if your artistic skills are minimal.

Can you have too much candy?³¹

12 August 2016

Hail Caesar

Caesar salad remains popular in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that it doesn’t have a high vegetable content; it’s basically lettuce with a rich dressing and a selection of animal products. (Cheese, eggs, bacon and anchovies. No wonder it’s popular!)

To make it more Christmassy (if a high-fat indulgence doesn’t sound Christmassy