A White Christmas

This Christmas will be different for many reasons. Firstly, instead of decorating our tree with the usual balls, we filled it with animals. Secondly, it will be a white Christmas because I will stay in north of Europe, closer to Father Xmas' land. I have mixed feelings about it: I promised to myself to never waste a day of my free time from work in London. My motto is: holidays are to escape from the city life. In this regard, I feel somehow trapped in a bubble. But, on the other hand, I look forward to hosting Christmas Eve in my new pad, which I tried to fill with all the warmth I could.

My parents will land on the 23th and spend two weeks with us. My mum is very excited about it ~ I hadn't seen her so engaged in her Christmas shopping for a long time ~ which is also handy because she is helping me with it. My dad is preparing himself to the hectic city life by going on a 5km walk every day. Sweet! On Xmas eve, as per catholic tradition, meat is forbidden. It is a kind of fasten, although fish is allowed ~ or better, welcome! In the old days, people used to fasten for real; nowadays, it is an excuse to treat yourself with a healthy fish meal before the grande bouffé on Christmas Day. But do not dare to touch meat on the 24th or you will be damned! And everybody of course respects this tradition. So, I am planning to wake up reasonably early that day and pop to the local farmer market and (literally) grab some oysters (to be rigorously eaten with champagne); some wild mushrooms to spread on crostoni for my mum’s delight (she adores them!); some black squid ink spaghetti with fresh mussels; and a selection of British cheese for my dad's palate's pleasure... Not too bad for an amateurish fish cook.

On Christmas Day we will head to Surrey for a proper British Xmas kindly hosted by the Lofty family. For once, all Steve's closest family will be reunited. He is truly excited about it. We are also trying to be very well organised this year: we split presents' responsibilities: I am in charge for Juliette, Ilsa, Lindsey and my parents' presents and Steve for his parents, grandmother, brother. Having said that, we still have a long way to go...

Of course, I will miss my dearest friends to death this year. I hope they will forgive my absence and will follow Clopis' example.

Merry Christmas to all the blogreaders!