Merry Christmas!!

Yay, Louise and I pulled off a splendid Christmas dinner! Now I feel as I do on a typical Christmas day - so full I could be sick, sleepy, but satsified! Yesterday I made the cheese sauce for the brocolli and a pavlova (meringue/marshmellowy sweey NZ dessert). The pav bombed and was burnt on the bum! No time to make another one then, as Osamu arrived and then we were off to Shimonoseki to meet the girls there (yes it was all girls and poor Osamu was the sole boy!). After chatting, drinking, gossiping Louise, Osamu and I got the last train back to Asa. So at 12:30am I decided that if I make another pav then, I could sleep a little later today! This one was great, so I slept easily knowing I had not failed so early in the proceedings!

Louise arrived this morning, and we set to work, wearing our Christmas hats and reindeer antlers. Even this morning had that Christmas day feel of preparing for the family feast! I kept thinking I should call the family and wish them a Merry Christmas! By 2pm our Japanese Asa friends started arriving, and the turkey was done by about 3pm so then we feasted...! We ate turkey, gravy. cranberry jelly, mixed veges, roasted potatoes, turkey stove top, brocolli cheese, Yorkshire puddings and pumpkin/sweet potato mash. Phew, it was so good! Though in the process I got a blistery steam burn on my finger, and we had the damn strife of using 2 J-ovens, and trying to have everything hot at the same time with hot plates - cos no one is having Christmas dinner on cold plates! Oh and we had Christmas crackers - with the cheapest gifts and silliest jokes inside! Can someone explain this to me: Q. What do you call a girl with a piano on her head? Ans. Joanna.

At about 5pm we had dessert: Pav, apple crumble, ice cream and the tiniest Christmas Pudding one has ever seen! So, all in all it was a lovely day, and the thing about these friends is they always take the leftovers so I don't have to put up a whole lot of food hanging around for days!

Now it is two days until Vietnam. Luckily I have half days, so I can get organised and pack etc. Then we're 'leaving on a jet plane...!!' Yay!!