26-12-24, Boxing Day - the start of the Twelve Days

A slightly bleary 'good morning' to you all from a just-starting-to-get-light mid-Essex.  I hope yesterday was a lovely time for you and that your pressies, whatever they were, whether you gave them or received them, gave you much joy.

It was lovely for me, here.  A fairly quiet morning with time to potter and get everything finished, into the oven, etc.  Jamie's slow roast lamb recipe was so good - the gravy it gave was amazing with just a touch of balsamic vinegar (thank you, Dave, for that suggestion) and some thickening granules.  Right at this moment, the considerable leftovers are gently warming in the oven so I can get all the meat off the bone and have a think about how to use them.

We have a family traditional standing joke around the wooden nativity set.  I think (but could be wrong) it started many years ago when, after I had carefully placed the baby in the manger first thing Christmas morning, he was kidnapped and a ransom note was left.  Since then, each year, Beth has worked out some sort of joke/trick culminating in the Tribbles joke where every time I disappeared into the kitchen to do something, more tribbles appeared around the manger and stable until they were all over the floor as well..  I honestly don't know how she thinks of them.

This year there was a card with the following words of wisdom . . .

"When John the Baptist spoke of the 'Lamb of God', he forgot to mention baby sheep usually come in MULTIPLES."

. . . And so they do!!

We had good food - the roasties still have to be put on the table - there was - er - enough!!

The not-Christmas pudding, aka gingerbread cheesecake, went down a treat - and there's loads left to freeze in slices.

We played games - well, they did, I had a snooze!!

We watched the new Wallace and Grommit programme.  Really good with lots of laugh out loud moments and some of us managed to get through surprisingly large amounts of alcohol.  How I woke up feeling only slightly bleary I shall never know.  There's no justice, is there?

And Beth loved her hexa-cardi which fitted really well.  Cheers!

I didn't watch the King's Speech as the others don't, so I will catch up with it today, but I did watch the Channel 4 alternative on YouTube this morning and I thought it was good so here you are - in case you didn't see it - from everyone's favourite person at the moment . . .

Now it is Boxing Day and the start of a frankly and slightly nauseatingly self-indulgent  Twelve Days of Christmas.

In a basket, there are twelve (well, eleven now) parcels containing this, that and the other.  Most are just little things, a couple are a bit bigger and, although I can remember most of them, apart from the two bigger ones I don't really know which parcel is what so that's nice.  

The box leaning against the basket is twelve Nespresso capsules behind twelve doors, a gift from Beth, so that can join the daily opening.

This looks huge, doesn't it - it's not.  I found it in HomeSense and it is a little box with twelve liqueur choccies (really only 4-5 cms tall) so they can also join in.

And there's last year's puzzle, two boxes per day - I haven't done that yet.

So here's today's.  One of the two parcels I can remember.

The choc is raspberry, the capsule is 'cioccatilino (it says on the foil lid) and I'm going to browse my way through the book today.

Today, I need to deal with copious leftovers one way or another and I will be going over to Beth's for lunch so that's really nice.

Happy Boxing Day, everyone, have a good time whether you spend it resting, walking, busy, whatever . . .  xx