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Published: January 8th 2006
Christmas Day for 2005 was a bit more exciting this year and far more comfortable than 2004. Our body clocks were suitably adjusted this time, we were far more aware of what part of the globe we were in and therefore slightly more in the "holiday mood". Amazingly enough this year was much warmer than last. We were able to dress for Christmas dinner without jackets- unlike last year when we would get "misty breath" when we went outside.
We hosted 19 other adults, 4 teenagers and 8 little tackers for dinner. Derrick, our friend from Canada came around early to cook our turkey for us, while we made preparations for the veggies. He worked in a kitchen in his life before the Air Force and so with both of us being inexperienced in the cooking-of-oversized-chickens-department, we gladly accepted his help. He was quite entertaining to watch; teaching us a thing or two like how to chop veggies like the pros.
To make way for the dining table, we had completely swapped our furniture from our large loungeroom into our small dining room. The couch and coffee table were now in the smaller area, and in their place, was
a HUGE table. We joined 4 trestles together to make one big table and needed two enormous tablecloths to cover it. James and Leanne (one of the other Aussie families), Derrick and our pommie friends Tim and Claire lent us their diningroom chairs and Tim and Claire combined their dinner set, cutlery and glasses with ours so that we had enough to go around. Even though this area of the house is quite big, the table pretty much filled the room, so it was lucky that it was warm enough for people to mingle in the Florida room as well.
From about 3pm onwards, people started to arrive and the kitchen became a hive of activity. At one point, we had Claire, Sandra (Netherlands) and I cooking the veggies over electric frying pans (gets them really crispy). What a production line!! Cooking vegetables for the amount of people we had, with limited resources was quite a challenge. I think we smashed the record for the most amount of vegetables cooked by three people in a relatively short amount of time. This time was not fast enough for the hovering German and Canadian who were both worried about their turkey
and gravy not being cooked right, so the pressure was on. It was a bit like holding the cooking Olympics with so many nationalities involved.
About this time, we sat the little tackers down for tucker (sorry couldn't resist the alliteration), and things kind of hit a frenzied pitch as we had them in the kitchen with us, all being.. well.. er..
kids. Clinton helped out to get all of their little bottoms on seats and finally little tummys were happy.
Finally the moment arrived for everyone to be seated. Right then was when I wished I had someone videoing the whole thing. Clinton in particular, wanted our Christmas dinner to be sit-down, rather than a buffet, because he likes the tradition of passing the dishes around. I agreed wholeheartedly. With 21 people involved in this process, it was a riot! You almost needed a loudhailer to call out to the person 4 metres from you "can you pass the potatoes down please?"
Before we started eating, we popped the crackers/bonbons. This of course is extremely normal for us at Christmas, but for many at the table, they'd never seen it before. Tim, Claire and their mums
(who were staying with them over the holiday season from the UK) of course knew all about it, and Claire even introduced us to
their tradition. You cross your arms in front of you and then share a cracker with the person to your left and right. Then everyone at the table pulls their cracker at once! Quite hillarious. By the way, Americans don't generally have this custom. It seems that despite being settled by the Brits like us, they have severed numerous ties, presumably since the War of Independence. Ridiculously, you still occasionally hear anti-British sentiments from Americans.
As far as what we had for dinner, here's the list and who it was brought by:
Derrick (Canada): Turkey and his famous cheeseball
Stephan & Kristin (Germany): Turkey and marzipan cake
Thomas & Nina (Germany): Ham and the biggest supply of mustard we've ever seen
Tim & Claire (UK): Christmas pudding, custard, trifle
Richard & Sandra (Netherlands): red cabbage, mashed potato and special green beans
Bart-Jan & Kathelijne (Netherlands): roast lamb
Cesar & Carolina (Chile): Special rice dish and icecream cake
Ben & Amanda (Australia): Lots of nibblies, dips, fruit etc
Us: Roast carrots, potatoes, pumpkin, peas, Nana's nuts
Table closeup
Click on this image to see the details...& bolts and Nana's White Christmas
Needless to say, my concerns about not having enough food were completely unfounded.
There were several little funny highlights to the night:
Germany have very different Christmas dinner traditions (in fact many of the families there from around the world celebrate Christmas on the 24th), so when we asked Thomas and Nina to bring the ham, they seemed a bit perplexed. They were very concerned about getting the right thing, no matter how much we tried to reassure them that they could just buy it, ready-smoked from a shop. When they arrived, they had
6 large bottles of mustard with them. From that point on, (and it's still going on) everyone started giving them "curry" about their mustard. We still haven't found out officially
why they brought so much, but can only suggest that the guy in the ham shop took advantage of their uncertainty and convinced them that mustard is something you
must have when you eat ham. Worrying about the number of people coming, they bought the shop out!
Three of our ex-pat families unfortunatley couldn't be with us: Marc went home to his family in Germany, Peter and Brenda
spent Christmas with their family in the Netherlands and Leanne and James went to New York for the Christmas/New Year period. Recently, we've started using a computer program called "Skype" where you can have a video conversation with people anywhere in the world using a webcam. It's quite amazing! Anyway, James called us on Christmas night to say G'day to everyone. At the base here in Jacksonville, the international crowd started a club several years ago called the "Nato Tag Team". It's made up soley of foreign military and select Americans. It's a bit of a laugh and every now and then they organise a game of golf, paint ball, or other sorts of "male bonding" type events. They have a fabric embroidered patch that they must have at all times, so that if another member shows them theirs, they must produce it, else owe everyone a drink (or something like that... this is not necessarily an original tradition I know). If nothing else, this club helps the guys to get to know people quickly, when they've just arrived in a different country. Apparently over the years, there have been some pretty funny stories including a couple of guys who
"patched" another member whilest under the water scuba diving! Anyway, all of the guys crowded around Clinton's laptop to say G'day to James and patched him! Clinton said the entire view of his monitor was filled with a NTT patch, as James held his up to the camera. Kind of long winded, sorry... but it explains the photo to the left!
The other thing that was really funny, was when I took a mouthful of Claire's hot Christmas pudding, smothered in custard. It was totally bizarre. Tears sprang into my eyes, because I was
totally overcome by homesickness. The only thing we can think of was that it's one thing that we only have once a year, and of course we're
always with our family. With all the effort we'd gone to, to try to emulate all of the home-cooked Christmas lunches and dinners at home, this was the one thing that affected me like that. At first it took me by surprise, so I just finished the mouthful and laughed away the tears (a few people had noticed). Then evey time I took another bite, it would happen again. Claire saw what was going on, and all I
could get out was, "every time I take a bite, it reminds me....gulp... thanks Claire!" she knew straight away and rushed around the other side of the table to give me a hug, and we both fell into fits of laughter. It wasn't until later that I could explain to the few other people around us what the heck I was going on about. It's truly amazing how your sense of taste can have such a powerful memory trigger!
Some of the little touches we put on the evening also included having chocolate santas and candy canes hanging on the tree for the kids. That was really funny- took them a while to see them and then they all came up asking permission to eat one! Also we managed to find some kangaroo Christmas decorations to give to each of our guests and a special American bear one for the other Aussies.
All up, it was a fantastic night and despite being so far away from everyone at home, we were able to partially make up for it, by having some wonderful friends share Christmas with us instead!
Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!
Love
Clinton & Michelle
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Mum Wadrop
non-member comment
Wow!!
All looks great-so pleased you were able to share your Xmas with who were obviously good friends and a great array of food. Now I know who can do Xmas when you are back in Aust! We missed you on the day, but just so happy that Xmas 2005 was one that was shared so well with others. You are gamer than me you two! XXXX