So, it’s been
and gone for another year. Yesterday I
sat and did nothing and it was so nice after the rush of last week. Here’s the short guide to our Christmas:
We had people
round on Sunday for which I made mulled wine (and drank a large quantity myself
in the name of quality control. I also
made a large quantity of mince pies, using a little pastry trick that a friend
gave me that worked very well (lovely soft dought to roll out and nice crumbly pastry
to eat).
We tried a new
trick with the gingerbread house too - decorating the pieces BEFORE constucting
the house. It definitely works better as
the sweets can’t slide off while the pieces of gingerbread are lying flat but
it did feel a bit like cheating! The
finished house lasted until Sunday when various unnamed people started picking
off the sweeties! The cake, on the other
hand, has survived in tact as everybody was too full to eat it on Tuesday (and –
more importantly – the boys don’t like it).
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| Cem trying out the 3-d glasses |
Fethiye is a
pretty awful place for buying presents.
At this age the boys are too old for most toys and they have phones,
laptops, i-pods etc. so there isn’t much left except clothes. I did do quite a bit of shopping online
though. I thought that was supposed to
be easy and stress-free? Many foreign
sites won’t post to Turkey so I used Turkish sites; unfortunately some of them would not accept
my UK debit card. It took me about 3
days and a phone call to one of the companies to place the orders – and I had
to pay the cargo company cash on delivery.
So not all that easy and stress-free really!
On Christmas
morning we were pretty lazy – the boys don’t come in at half six any more! After breakfast Cem and Emre had to go and do
a couple of things and I had a chance to get things sorted for the dinner
later. We had that at the hotel with
friends and Cem’s mum – only about 12 of us this year. The turkey apparently tasted good, though it
wouldn’t have won any prizes for presentation.
I used a roasting bag for the first time and when I undid it after just
3 hours, everything fell off the turkey!
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| kitten - just 'cos she's so cute! |
I had made
myself a chestnut casserole and actually remembered to take it to the hotel
this year. Last year I forgot it at home
and asked Kaan to collect it. In the
final panic of cooking, stirring and reheating I opened the pot he’d brought me
to find it contained stewed apple so I ended up having only veggies!
Turkey has been
talking Christmas things this year.
Firstly, a Turkish archeologist has asked Italy to return Saint Nick’s
bones (taken from here several centuries ago).
And Turkish scientists have been researching why Rudolf’s nose was red…yes
really, and gained quite a lot of attention from all over the world!
And finally…..play
the video – isn’t it great? HappyChristmas and hope you all have a good New Year celebration!
