SPONSORED | A JOLLY GOOD CHRISTMAS

…the Little Man ready to play his part as Santa’s Little Helper…

This year we hosted the family Christmas; no pressure. In my head I had a huge day planned. Starting with a fabulous breakfast, peaking with a scrumptious lunch and fading to black with a dinner of yummy left overs. The reality was something a little less Donna Hay meets Martha Stewart and a little more Everybody Loves Raymond meets National Lampoons Christmas Vacation.

Our household members were awake around 6am thanks to the Little Man and so by 8:00am we had breakfast cooking underway.  My Dad made Eggs Benedict with ham.  Normally we serve the dish with orange juice and champagne but in a show of solidarity with my pledge to go alcohol free for Christmas the family all had orange juice with ginger ale and lemonade instead.

Breakfast was lovely and I really enjoyed the fact that I didn’t have to force myself to drink the champagne and juice like I have in previous years.  (Turns out I’m not a morning drinker!)

At 10:30am I made the drive to the hotel to pick up my Aunt (another good thing about not drinking in the morning – I was able to drive!).  With the final family member in place it was time to open the presents.

…could this kid look any less enthused?…

Oh em gee! The Little Man made off with a massive haul! I had no idea just how many gifts a 6 month old could receive.  He was totally spoiled. It got to the point where we were passing his presents out to the other family members so they could open them just so we could get on with the day.

I was so touched by the generosity of our family and friends. It simply reinforced just how wonderfully lucky we are and how blessed I feel that our Little Man is loved by those we love.

With present opening out of the way it was time to move on to lunch. Here’s where the solidarity left the building and I was on my own.

…salad preparation is serious business…

Now for the past 6.5 years we’ve been trying for a baby. That’s meant that I’ve been on a rather weird cocktail of medications and hormones.  For some strange reason one of the side affects of the medication was an allergic reaction to alcohol.  I spoke to my Doctors about it and they speculated that once the medications stopped I could go back to enjoying an alcoholic beverage when the mood took me.  Something to look forward to…

However, once the IVF worked and I went off the medications I made the decision that I wouldn’t drink while pregnant.  This meant last Christmas I wasn’t able to partake because I was (happily) up the duff.  So for the few months leading up to Christmas I had been planning my first foray back into the world of the alcoholic beverage.  (To the point where I had been actively researching which cocktails would go nicely with my Christmas Day menu!)

I had my eye on trying out my first ever mojito and I figured what better day to start than Christmas Day.  But when the opportunity came along to work with febfast I decided that one more day of not drinking wasn’t going to kill me.  Best decision I could have made.

…decking the deck in decorations…

Having family over for Christmas Day is bloody stressful!

I’d invested so much mentally in having the perfect Christmas Day that by the time it rolled around I was exhausted before it even started. I would have been absolutely screwed had I decided to drink.

In my head I had this vision of how our deck would look.  I had spent a few hours over the weeks leading up to the event combining the stores for the perfect decorations.  I had a plan to make a big mass of paper pom poms, but in the end I couldn’t find enough tissue paper and I ran out of time so I just had to make do.  It was a tad disappointing.  (I suspect had I been drinking I probably would have been in tears at this point!)

Our lunch menu was an ambitious one (a good indication that I had no clue when it comes to hosting a family event).

…salads and entrees land on the table…

The menu was as follows:

Entree:

Pan Fried Scallops with Lime & Chilli – served with Bread Nerds sourdough and butter.

Main:

 

Wild Barramundi with Lemon Butter Sauce

Donna Hay’s Tomato and Bocconcini Salad

Bitsa Garden Salad

Arugula, Pear and Feta Salad

Dessert

Donna Hay’s Steamed Christmas Pudding – with ice-cream and/or custard

Fruit Skewers

See what I mean? Ambitious. We didn’t sit down to lunch until 3pm. (Although, I still maintain that other than opening presents (which was out of the way) and eatting what else were we going to do on Christmas Day so timing really wasn’t an issue.)

The Scallops (made by my Dad) were awesome. Seriously lovely. It had just the right amount of heat to it and with the fresh bread to mop up the juices it was divine.

The Barramundi (again made by Masterchef Dad) was the perfect chaser.  Combined with the salads it made for a rather healthy-ish (did you see how much butter was in there!) lunch.

While everyone else enjoyed a wine with lunch I happily had Gnome’s Summertime Elixir.  It was just what I needed to give me a bit of a perk up; a rest and a cool drink will do wonders for the soul.

With the mains out of the way we had a bit of a chat while we let lunch settle and I waited for the water to boil so I could heat up the Christmas Pudding.

I was so nervous about the pudding.  I had made it a couple of weeks ago and it was the first time I’d ever attempted making a pudding.  I had no clue how it would turn out and no backup plan should it turn out to be horrid.

I heated it through again, as per the recipe, and then the moment of truth – tipping it out on to the plate.  (Again, another good thing about not being a little bit tipsy by this time of the day; I didn’t drop the pudding!)

Hey presto it’s a Christmas Pudding:

…the magic pudding…

It looked just like a pudding should, but as they say the proof is in the pudding. I served it up and waited…

The Christmas Pudding was a resounding success.  Cue the huge sigh of relief.

With lunch officially over those of us that had been partaking of a cleansing ale decided to retreat to the lounge room to continue the wine consumption and watch some television.  That left the ladies to their own devices.  (My Mum and Aunt had decided to limit their intake in semi-solidarity with my decision to be alcohol free.  Sisters are doing it for themselves!)

We decided to spend the afternoon breaking in the boardgames that Santa had brought to our house.  If you ever get the opportunity to play Trivial Pursuit: Bet You Know It give that opportunity a wide berth. You want to lose friends and alienate people than this is the game for you.  The whole premise of the game is to bet on whether the person being asked the question will know the answer or not. Hello! The game is asking you to divulge just how smart you think your nearest and dearest are!  No good can come of this! None!

Thank goodness I was sober as a judge or that could have been one tricky situation!

Half way through the game a sound a kin to distant thunder came wafting from the lounge room. I went to investigate and this is what I found:

…3 generations of boys passed out sleeping…

The lads had falling victim to the perils of wine drinking in the middle of the day. (I’d like to point out the obvious – the Little Man was having his afternoon nap – the other 2 were having a wine snooze!)

While I stood there looking at their angelic faces I contemplated my options;

1. Leave them sleep the sound sleep of the slightly tipsy,
2. Get out the Sharpies and draw on their faces, or
3. Take photographic evidence and blog about it.

I opted for 2! Just kidding! I figured name and shame would work best.

Photo acquired I returned to playing the worst board game ever. (Ok, maybe not ever but it’s up there!)  In between mixing mocktails, taking turns to bet on each others intelligence and stealing moments to play Words With Friends on our iPads. (Seriously, we’re a family full of WWF addicts!) the afternoon melted into evening.

The Little Man was the first to wake and then the other 2 sleeping bears woke to forage for food. We had a small dinner of leftovers, chocolate from our Cadbury Stockings and ice-cream.  At around 9pm my Mum and I took my Aunt home – via an impromptu Christmas Lights Tour of southern Canberra. (Another great thing about being sober; I got to see the Christmas Lights without worrying about double demerits!)

All-in-all it was a pretty good day, dare I say it a lovely day. I didn’t miss my mojito ending dry spell; in fact it worked out for the best in the end.  There’s no way I would have been able to do all the things I wanted to had I been tipsy (not to mention Boxing Day would have been a write off as I would have spent the day trying to recover).

Do I feel like I missed out anything by going without alcohol on Christmas Day? Nope, not in the slightest.  In fact I’m really glad that I got to enjoy the day fully, especially given that it was the Little Man’s first Christmas.  I think about the message I want to send my son about alcohol and I’m extremely conscious of ensuring that he realizes that drinking, like Trivial Pursuit: Bet You Know It, doesn’t equal a good time.

This post was brought to you by febfast: a pause for the better.

I’ll be giving up alcohol for February 2013.  You can join me, and my team, if you too would like to have a pause for the better.  You can find out more information here. If you would like to join my team just leave me a comment or drop me an email (email icon on the left hand side of this post).