Christmas in a Nutshell

Happy Christmas! As always the season was full of madness and mayhem. We went to my mum and dad's for our annual pre-Christmas dinner and it was as noisy, chaotic and marvellous as ever. There are fifteen of us now so it's getting more and more difficult to squeeze us all in .. mum managed it though. This was the view taken from my mobile phone, as you can see everyone is far too busy with their dinner to bother to turn and smile which is just as it should be. We had a treasure hunt for the children after lunch, just for chocolate but then, what else do you want to hunt for at Christmas .. they all enjoyed it.

The weather stayed cold and snowy throughout the Christmas holidays, it was our first white Christmas in a long while (though strictly speaking it can't be called that because snow has to actually have fallen on the day and it didn't .. well, not here anyway!) I did my best to watch all of my favourite Christmas films .. 'The Grinch', 'Scrooge' (Albert Finney), 'Prancer', 'Nightmare before Christmas', 'The Muppet Christmas Carol' and 'The Polar Express'. Somehow, we didn't manage to see 'The Snowman' .. I don't know what went wrong or how we overlooked it but it happened. It's the first time since it came out that we haven't seen it on Christmas Day.

I received lots of books which was great, some of which I asked for and some which are complete surprises. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into them. I'm not good at keeping to resolutions but I really must make more of an effort to read from my bookshelves in 2011 but it leaves me in a bit of a quandary because I want to support my local libraries too .. it would be a disaster if any of them closed down and they will if they don't get enough support. I guess I will just have to try and do both.

It has to be said that the main thing I get for Christmas is always indigestion! There is nothing like a few days of turkey, christmas pudding, crackers, cheese, crisps, cake, mince pies and chocolate to make you feel more than a little dyspeptic. It's just not the right time of year to eat healthily. January will soon be upon us and that's the time to be abstemious as far as calories are concerned. In the meantime we will eat, drink and be merry .. after all, there's always Alka-Seltzer!

My attempt at Rocky Road.

Our quieter but none the less calorific Christmas dinner at home.

A Christmas Carol

Synopsis: Ebenezer Scrooge is unimpressed by Christmas. He has no time for festivities or goodwill toward his fellow men and is only interested in money. Then, on the night of Christmas Eve, his life is changed by a series of ghostly visitations that show him some bitter truths about his choices. "A Christmas Carol" is Dickens' most influential book and a funny, clever and hugely enjoyable story.

Review: Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Scrooge, I annually dose myself up with a good dollop of Dickens starting with the book and meandering through several film versions. I love them all but especially the Albert Finney musical (particularly a pleasure because my Dad worked on it .. albeit as a humble scene painter), Alistair Simms version (again, probably because Dad thinks it is the definitive Scrooge) and the Muppet Christmas Carol (who would have thought that would work as well as it did?) I also saw the new 3D Jim Carey version at the cinema last December and thought it was fantastic. I've always thought that to do justice to the book, the ghost scenes are going to have to be CGI, and though I think there's still room for improvement (and am always hoping that either Tim Burton or Peter Jackson will have a go sooner or later) I thought they managed to get the atmosphere of the books over really well. I was disappointed to see that the film is only showing this year in 2D and then only on specific days .. bah humbug!

I have several different book versions and this year I thought I'd read the beautiful edition illustrated by P.J. Lynch, it's gorgeous and it just adds that extra something to the tale. There's probably nobody out there that doesn't know the story of old skinflint Scrooge .. 'a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner' .. who is visited one night by his former partner Jacob Marley in ghostly form and then by three ghosts, all sent to show him the error of his ways.

The part that I love the most is probably the Cratchit family Christmas which seems, despite all their poverty and worry, idyllic. They are just truly happy at being together for the day and I just love the description of their dinner with it's hissing gravy, gushing sage and onion and steaming pudding. In fact I'd love to re-create the dinner by having a goose instead of a turkey but I'm too worried there won't be enough leftovers and I'm far too fond of a turkey, ripe tomato and black pepper sandwich to give it up. Not to mention the worrying tales, I've heard from friends, with regards to the amount of fat that comes out of it, apparently you end up being thoroughly basted in it yourself. The story is beautifully written, Dickens was said to have single handedly reinvented Christmas with this tale and Thackeray called it 'a national benefit' ... it's him at his absolute best.

Tis the Season

It's very hard to keep merry at this time of the year, the queues are long, tempers frayed and the shops seem to be full of things you don't want and empty of things you do.

What a pleasure it was then to take some time out to wander around Cirencester one evening and enjoy carols, a lantern procession and a Germanesque Christmas market. By the time we got there most of the shops were closed (although the stalls at the market were open) so a lot of the hustle and bustle had gone and people were meandering about happily.

It has to be said that it didn't quite compete with the Cologne Christmas market that we visited a few years back, this one is on a much smaller scale, but there are still lots of stalls selling lovely handcrafted goods, decorations and great food. There is mulled wine, Gloucester old spot sausages and the densest, most chocolatey brownies that I've ever tasted (these were probably the reason we walked home in record quick time.)


The lanterns were gorgeous too, every conceivable Christmas shape made out of willow and coloured tissue paper. Algie thinks he will make one next year and take part ... I'm guessing it might take the form of a giant toblerone.

A lovely evening despite a catastrophic start at Costa .. we ordered a Caramel Latte which I hated. It was supposed to be a Crème Brûlée Latte but to be honest the menu is so extensive that I was lucky to end up with any kind of coffee at all. Still it helped keep the chill off.

Algie forgot to charge up his camera so that explains the pretty poor photo's, these were the best of a bad bunch which was a shame because the lanterns were glorious.