I'm not a gin person nor a morning drinker but in the dying days of the last century my wife gave me a frosted Christmas glass and it became the custom for me to have a large GAT on Christmas morning. Sadly it's just over six years since she died but I still have my GAT out of frosted glass every Christmas morning andhave just done so. Seasons greetings everyone.
These traditions are all family ones. Wondered if there are any military ones. Did, or do different regiments celebrate with any particular meals, events or quirky customs.
Did any AA regiments keep a special Christmas Eve watch for sledges for example? After all in WW2 an unidentified flying object coming in from the direction of Lapland (Finland) with whom Britain was officially at war!
Cheese balls and shandy. Babycham. Mixed nuts. Fry's Chocolate Cream. Fry's Turkish Delight. Salted cashews. Marzipan. Burnt chipolatas, definitely without blankets. Roast potatoes and stuffing. Bubble and squeak. Turkey sandwiches. The purple one from Quality Street.
Mmm Frys chocolate cream, hadn't had one for ages. The flat toffee one for me please. Yorkshire puddings.
Pigs in blankets and more pigs in blankets, my mother used to say that she could forget about the turkey and all the other stuff and just give me a plate full of pigs in blankets yum yum that would do for me.
Quality Street I quite like all of them Stollen (very continental of me) Cadburys chocolate Nearly everything really apart from Offal and Aubergines
We always have a party (apart from last year of course) on Christmas Eve, this is partly due to my wife being half Austrian. The children can open some of their presents that night, with the wonderful consequence of quelling their excitement enough for us all to have a sensible lie in the next morning. None of this: "Is he here yet Dad?" Vanilla Kipferl (seriously delicious). Pigs in blankets and stuffing.
I am tone deaf but we did make money singing carols, four or five of us, aged between 8 and 11, by going to neighbours' houses in a suburb of Leeds one year a few days before Christmas, circa 1959. I think we had candles in jam jars, which burnt the hand ! We shared the spoils equally. Probably 5 old pence, I think, or just over 2 new pence. Carols must have been O Come all Ye Faithful and While Shepherds Watched...then "We wish you a Merry Christmas, etc., and a Happy New Year." Knock on door and wait hopefully. We were pleased to get a threepenny bit. Charity begins at home, not a penny for the poor and starving. Made the dogs bark. Rum butter, flaming brandy on the pudding, which had a sixpence in it.
Croissants and apricot jam with bucks fizz for breakfast. Then later on it's turkey, stuffing, pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce, roast and boiled potatoes, carrots, parsnips, Brussels sprouts and gravy. Sherry trifle. Christmas pudding and brandy sauce. A steady supply of nuts and Quality Street, chocolate mints, mince pies, and white wine or vodka and tonic. Boxing Day turkey and ham sandwiches plus more snacks then leftover Christmas Dinner in the evening. New Year is usually hotpot and shortbread with champagne to toast the New Year at midnight. Childhood Christmases always involved one of my dad's socks as a stocking filled with an apple, an orange, tangerines and nuts, and a pillow case at the end of the bed for presents. We.would eat dinner on Christmas Eve. Dad would do the first footing on New Year's Eve with a piece of coal in his hand, then everyone would have a glass of sweet sherry.
We're having the family Christmas meal at my new house this year. Usually it's up at Mom's house but since I bought this place in July everyone thought that it would be best to have it here. It has plenty of room, but not everyone can be seated in the dining room at once. I can put 10 on the patio, three at the kitchen island and four in the living room. Maybe ten in the dining room. We'll have plenty of food to go around so nobody will go home hungry. All the couzan's (that's Cajun French for cousin) are providing the eats. Here's what's on the menu; boudin, turkey, chicken and sausage gumbo, corn and shrimp soup, pot roast, dirty rice, cabbage, potato salad, black eye peas, green bean casserole, green peas, bread, and that's about it I think. Oh yeah, and there'll be assorted desserts like we need that. We also will serve a Poinsettia Punch. It's made up of champagne, vodka, orange liqueur and cranberry juice. Not bad. Merry Christmas y'all!
Lovely place, Bobby. c.Four years is a tradition, right? Buying the boys a selection of the strangest (to us) Japanese/Chinese/Singaporean/Taiwanese crisps & sweets the Chinese supermarkets can muster, and watching them wince their way through seaweed flavoured chocolates & crisps flavoured with eg. (as far as we can tell) engine oil, Ginger & Wasabi has become an annual rite. Some of them even lead to regular later purchases.
Boxing Day brings the ballet on television. It matters not whether it is the ballet or some tripe about ghosts, because I fall asleep, or listen to CD's on headphones. And we do have cold chipolatas to munch upon. I hope you all got what you wanted and that all is peace and harmony down your way.
One of my housemates has become a cookin' fool. He outdid himself for the holidays, creating a chocolate yule log, a fruitcake, egg nog...and a FIGGY PUDDING. Yes, just like in the song. I had never seen a figgy pudding before, let alone eaten one. Well, it's damned good. Yum yum.
{ Day 3 out of 12 } Good for your housemate. No figs seen in the recipe for the Xmas pud I got from our local supermarket. 1204 calories for £1.50, ( 50 pence off for presenting a "loyalty" card ), steam for an hour, or 6 minutes in a microwave. The plastic bowl is useful for mixing paint in, etc. Essential to pour lots of brandy over it and set fire to it and turn the lights off and bring it in to the dining room. A sight I will always remember from the 1950's. The essence of Christmas. CHRISTMAS WITH THE TRAWLERS. 21 DECEMBER 1943, HARWICH. MEMBERS OF THE ESCORT TRAWLER HMS TURQUOISE PREPARE TO MAKE THE MOST OF CHRISTMAS AFLOAT.
{ Day 4 out of 12 } Holly with berries, sometimes hard to find. Sharp thorns on the leaves.. Christmas trees that smelt of Christmas trees. They seem to be different varieties today. Winter flowering bulbs, not my favourite aroma. Sometimes listening on the Medium Wave to the cricket from Australia, when the Ashes were on. ( Apologies for mentioning that.) The English team used to voyage out by liner. And the Christmas football games.
( Day 5 out of 12 } The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on the BBC, many available free online from the Royal Institution, for example, Prof. R.V. Jones on "Measurement & Navigation in War": Measurement and navigation in war | The Royal Institution: Science Lives Here Others from earlier years : From Magna Carta to microchip Prof RV Jones' 1981 lecture series is entirely devoted to the concept and importance of measurement. The chicken, the egg and the molecules Discover proteins, DNA, and the world they create. Watch Baron David Chilton Phillips and Max Perutz in our 1980 CHRISTMAS LECTURES. Atoms for enquiring minds: A circus of experiments Atoms are too small to be seen with the naked eye, but with experiments and models they can be visualised and explored. Watch Eric M Rogers in our 1979 CHRISTMAS LECTURES. Mathematics into pictures The nature of mathematics and the mathematics of nature. Watch Sir Christopher Zeeman in our 1978 CHRISTMAS LECTURES. The planets A classic lecture series exploring the solar system. Watch Carl Sagan in our 1977 CHRISTMAS LECTURES. The natural history of a sunbeam Learn about the power of sunlight, from its structure to how it supports life on Earth with Professor George Porter in the 1976 CHRISTMAS LECTURES. Signals from the interior Or how to examine your inside without breaking the skin. Watch Heinz Wolff in our 1975 CHRISTMAS LECTURES. The engineer through the looking glass The wonder of engineering. Watch Eric Laithwaite in our 1974 CHRISTMAS LECTURES. The languages of animals Exploring the varied and wonderful world of animal language with Sir David Attenborough in these 1973 CHRISTMAS LECTURES. Ripples in the ether The past, present and future of radio communications. Watch Geoffrey G. Gouriet's series of 1972 CHRISTMAS LECTURES and find all about the science behind. Gulliver's travels Join Philip Morrison as he explores the physics of the large and the small in the 1968 CHRISTMAS LECTURES.
{ Day 12 out of 12 } I make this twelfth night, although some say tomorrow, so time to take the decorations down.
