There’s now way to hide the fact that Christmas was upon our doorsteps, the Xmas decorations had been thrown over houses in an attempt to imitate Clark Griswold and the mail man was extremely busy delivering the thousands of season greetings, and of course delivering all the presents we had bought online.
On top of that, traffic was mental in more ways that one would have hoped; queues were building up on the highway, parking lots were full and people were showing interesting gestures during their road-rage seizures.
The supermarket was also packed to the brim with last-minute food shoppers (incl. me) thinking that the shops would be closed for a long time, so it was our duty to humanity’s survival to stack the trolley full of items.
Back at the ranch, my dear wife was gift wrapping all the presents, hoping the kids wouldn’t sneak up on her, and also getting the kids ready for Christmas Eve mass at the local hall of worship.
It’s actually not easy to entertain three kids throughout the day, while we attempt to prepare for the feast of feast.
I had been nominated Christmas chef, so it was in my responsibility to have the food ready by around 6pm. Thankfully my dear mum had taught me some valuable lessons when it comes to preparing for these events “prepare as much as you can the day before, so you only have to do the finishing touches“. So, to honour my mum, I had prepared the ducks the day before, slow roasted the sausages and prepared the pans for the potatoes.
Just to mention, I introduced my little family to the Danish Christmas dishes, and they had stayed with us ever since. There’s nothing like a packed dinner table, full of lovely food and sides … plus the drinks of course.
In the meantime, in a room pretty close to the kitchen, the kids were watching “Tom & Jerry” and “Disney Christmas Show“. I always enjoyed watching these shows when I was a kid, while we were waiting for the grown-ups to prepare the food. this was another tradition I had “forced” upon my kids, who love spending the day on the couch.
Suddenly, as if I had entered a wormhole, it was time to head to church to witness my oldest daughter’s Christmas concert and also be reminded that we had sinned. An hour later and I felt “energised” from the mass, and I remembered how much I still had to prepare before we could sit down quietly.
As we arrived home a little after 5pm and I had no choice but to open a bottle of the red stuff, just to calm my nerves while putting on the last items to heat. All in all, I think had taken me close to 8 hours to prepare the Christmas feast, so this was the pinnacle of these preparations.
What had taken me that long to prepare took about 15 minutes to eat! The kids gobbled up duck, sausage, sweet potatoes (Danish style), gravy and regular potatoes as if there was no tomorrow (21 December all over again). I knew they were super excited about the upcoming gift sharing event.
The amount of food we had consumed would in theory fuel our bodies with enough calories to walk for about 11 hours – it was Christmas, so who cares!
We had barely licked the plates clean before the kids had attacked the Christmas tree, diving under the branches to dig out the presents. Who cares about name tags? Dig in was the command my youngest shouted.
It was like scenes out of Braveheart as the paper was ripped and shattered across the living room floor. In between opening presents, the kids had hardly time to witness what they had just received and were too busy playing with the toy while they were opening another present with their teeth … mayhem had arrived.
Suddenly the room was put to silence as my wife let out a loud scream. Last time I had heard this sound was when she had called for more drugs during our second child delivery, but this time it was more joyful.
In true “Roots” style, she held her present over her head will laughing hysterically. She was obviously overly happy with receiving an iPad Mini. Within minutes, she had taken a seat by the computer to set it up. We didn’t really see her for the next 2.5 hours!
The hour had grown late and it was time to kick the little ones to bed. They fell asleep within minutes, each hugging a number of new toys or books. My wife (still with the iPad Mini clued to her hands) and I took up positions on the sofa, flicked on “Indiana Jones & the Raiders of the Lost Ark“. We too were nodding off within minutes.
Shortly after midnight, we dragged our tired bodies into bed and fell asleep within seconds … my wife still with her new iPad Mini in clutched between her hands.
Getting to do this all over again on the 25 December.