An early Bird Christmas

We had Christmas in our house yesterday, 9 days early.  Jbird, BabyBird, and I will be on the West Coast Christmas so I wanted to give Soph a chance to celebrate with us.  Oh what a day we did have!

The food was delicious but more simple this year.  We started off with a late brunch of sour dough, omelet (on my new Christmas frying pan), and bacon with shandis* and mandarins.  This progressed to crackers, cheese, and like-minded dips.  Our friend Cassie joined us with Chocolate Charlies*. 

The afternoon disappeared pleasantly as we watched Christmas movies and played with BabyBird's new megabloks set.  There was a moment where I politely moved her away from her new toy so that I could set up the circus tower.  Yes, I was that mother.  We have added to our carol music and now have viola duets.  It was fun trying to teach alto clef to Soph but she still sounded better than both Jbird and I.  We also played through some of my new Irish music book which was a gift from Jbird.

Dinner was just a roast chicken this year.  I have a lovely recipe where the chicken roasts on top of onion slices in a dutch oven.  The moisture created by the lid nearly self-forms a gravy which was perfect after the addition of some chicken stock and marmite.  So yummy.  

We reached a climactic point in our cooking this evening where I was fussing over the gravy, there was food everywhere, we discovered some bread that needed garlic, butter, and toasting, I was simultaneously trying to put BabyBird to bed when I discovered her ceiling was leaking from a flood upstairs (!!), Jbird decided it was time to play Christmas carols on the piano*, AND I had forgotten to remind the guests that our garbage disposal doesn't work so the sink started to flood.  It was amidst this chaos that the garlic bread was forgotten under the grill, and flames started spewing from the oven.  It felt like a scene from I love Lucy.  

  

Things have calmed down now.  We're eating Soph's chocolate self saucing pudding with cream and mulled wine. The others are playing Settlers while I knit the last christmas pressie that I'm making.  

*wine and orange juice

*marshmallow, peanut butter, chocolate, peanuts, and rice bubbles dolloped in a bikkie shape.  

*I love that he plays these but it added to the chaos of the moment