This whole out-of-control dinner started the year my father died as an effort to have everyone together for dinner instead of one visit with my family and dinner with my in laws or vice versa. I got what I asked for so now I am left with spoils of doing this once a year. Generally, this wouldn't be so bad except for timing everything to come out at the same time. I think it might be easier to establish Middle East peace than to get everything ready for serving at the same time. By the time the dinner is on the table I am ready for the rag bag.
It's usually about this time that some of the craziness starts to unfold. I was reading an article about holiday movies which made the point that we like movies that show families more dysfunctional than our own. There is definitely some comedy that unfolds during these dinners that might make these movies look tame. Truth be told, I don't know anyone who doesn't describe their family as dysfunctional and perhaps one of the benefits of age is getting past the point where you are tangled in the dysfunction enough to watch it unfold as if it were a movie. I am not all the way there yet but my husband and I had a good joking debate on whose family was more dysfunctional. Mine won this year but he added in a moment of wisdom, "so far." We have about 5 more days for his family to win but I am pretty sure he knows it is unlikely. At least we can laugh about it. So how was your Christmas?
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The only disaster was my 9 month old granddaughter showing off her walking skills at the coffee table knocked over a whole cola over sister-in-law's white, linen Christmas table runner. In our efforts to pick up huge baby and clean up mess we knocked over large glass of red wine onto same runner and carpet! Running with huge baby and runner to sink to rinse under cold water (not the baby, just the runner), a little carpet cleaning and voila - my clan created the annual home trashing this year. We get the booby prize...lol. Personally, I take no responsibility as am only the "Nana" not the adult in charge.
As you can see all hosts suffer from their generosity of having family gatherings. Without lovely invitations we would be left to our own devices, stuck at home eating nasty, dry turkey for days on end watching the needles falling off the tree. I award you the Endurance Badge for holiday excellence!
Your dinner sounds superb! After mostly junk food on Christmas Eve, I made baked chicken, baked potatoes, and green beans for Christmas dinner. Just basic food. And we still have mounds of Christmas cookies left, so that was dessert. Then the day after, we went out for Chinese, and had leftovers at home.
I plan to make a cheesecake for New Year's, and we always have a little party with champagne. Just family.
Edited at 2008-12-27 08:12 am (UTC)
Since we didn't have any dry turkey to forage on yesterday, we ordered in pizza and samosas and I had pie for breakfast - my holiday tradition.
My father was in the military so we rarely ever lived anywhere where we could see family at christmas. We had that for a few years when he was stationed in Germany with my mother's party animal relatives. It was great, crazy but great. I miss it.
We had an enormous turkey that we'd left out in a brine overnight, so it was wonderfully juicy. Served up with roast potatoes, maple roast parsnips, carrots, peas, cauliflower, green beans, sprouts, broccoli, pork and herb stuffing, pigs in blankets, yorkshire puddings and a glorious gravy. Nothing got forgotten this year, although we did have to race to the oven to rescue the almost-forgotten yorkshire puddings.
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