Welcome to family, friends and visitors. Here you will find interesting (hopefully) pictures of my part of the world, news of our household and probably, long ramblings about anything that catches my interest.

Saturday, 24 December 2011

Christmas Traditions

I've had a fairly relaxed day today. Peter's back has been playing up all week and just as he thought it was on the mend an awkward turn has rendered him immobile, pain free only when lying flat on his back and dosed up with painkillers. Not a good start to Christmas for him, poor thing. I've spent the day preparing food for our traditional evening meal. Our families came from Lithuania where it is traditional to have a special meal on Christmas Eve as the main celebration of the holiday. There should be 12 courses or dishes consisting of fish or vegetables with no meat or dairy products being used. We compromise by having 12 dishes on the table as a mainly cold buffet. I always try and get marinated herrings as well as ordinary pickled herrings. We are also having smoked salmon, prawns, hot prawns in batter and the boys are concocting something spicy with king prawns, (we dropped into the supermarket late last night after picking up Linas from the train station and got some good deals.) Potato salad has been made and a mixed bean and beetroot salad. I'm taking a break while the boys take over the kitchen. This is the last day of Advent and when I think back on all the things in my life that I am thankful for I can see that I have a good life indeed and much to be thankful for.
Gift giving is always a part of Christmas and although we have tried to scale back this year focusing on treats rather than grand items there is still a sizable pile in the spare room waiting to be put under the tree tonight. Ah! the tree that we weren't going to have because it is a 'quiet' year. A tree was requested so once again we have our eco-tree fashioned from the top of one of the prolific leylandii and decorated with lots of glass drops and 'crystal' decorations. When the boys were little we only put the tree up after they had gone to bed on Christmas Eve and we have carried on with not putting it up until Christmas Eve.


We have always gone as a family to the midnight Service at our local village church but we will have to see how Peter's back is. Then it's time for bed so that 'Mother' Christmas can hang small stockings on everybody's bedroom door handle. Because the contents this year are mostly chocolates I shall not be wrapping each item. That used to take so long to do as I would buy small items all through the year for each of them. (Linas has just come in to say that they are sorting out all the rest of the meal.)


Looking forward to all the Christmas festivities - Merry Christmas to one and all!

1 comment:

HappyK said...

A very Merry Christmas to you and your family.
When i was a kid most people waited to put up their tree on Christmas eve too.