Belated Christmas Antics
So Baros and I were super delayed on Christmas antics this year. We did not decorate our tree until the Saturday before Christmas. Now, we could say that we were waiting for Baros' brother to arrive since he arrived on that Saturday... but no, we just got busy and ran out of time. December was a busy month and we just ran out of weekends!
We made time for decorating when Burak arrived to stay with us! It was really fun setting up. There was laughter and jokes. We used our blue ornaments from last year but we got a new little tree since our white one from last year got super discolored from the sunlight.
Our tree is beautiful and we've added some new ornaments from the mamma bear (it’s mid-January and the tree is still up… sooo we’ll see how long it lives in our living room!).
For Christmas itself, I had to get up for work like usual.
I left at 6:40 in the morning for a half day of hectic! It was a quiet, yet busy day and then I made the mad dash to the train station to meet the boys to get to mom's house. The boys don’t drive and I don’t have a car, so it was public transport. An hour and change of antics, face making, jokes, and even a brief nap on my part.
We arrived by just around 5 and had the first Christmas feast.
Mom ordered and made food. She's incredibly Italian sometimes. As far as I can tell, all Italians know how to feast. In fact, it's an important part of our genetics.
Our original Christmas feast was supposed to be 6 people (Mom, my brother, my brother's girlfriend, Baros, Burak and me). As a result, my mom ordered enough food for 15 people and still cooked additional food! Because you know, my brother, my husband and my brother-in-law all eat for 2 people... Yes. That must have been the logic.
Needless to say, I cracked up when we decided to invite another couple of friends and my mother panicked. We wouldn’t have enough food even though she ordered more than double what we needed for 6. Apparently the food for 15+ wouldn't be enough for 9 people. The restaurant even gave my mom 30 rolls so it's not like we were lacking food.
But, as always, Mom just wanted to make sure everyone had enough to eat... It's part of her genetics to want to overfeed people. It’s one of the best parts of her.
One of mom's friends joined us for dinner and my friends Angela and Evan also joined. Andrea joined us for the following day.
Of all of the food, we only got through the appetizers and first course. We didn't even get to try the second course on Christmas Eve.
Appetizers:
Cheese
Pepperoni, salami, prosciutto
Hummus
Salad
Olives
Other appetizer food that I can't remember
First Course:
Mussels fra diavolo
Pasta with shrimp and tomato sauce
Manicotti
Fried Fish
Second Course:
Chicken Francese
Spinach
Eggplant Parmigiana
I think there was more food but I can't remember. I just know we were in food coma.
There was so much food that we barely made a dent. We finished a lot of the appetizers and made a minor dent in the first course.
We gave up and did not touch the second course because there were also 3 pies for dessert!
Oh man, so much food coma.
So, my mom's worry was needless. We didn't even have to worry about the Christmas day meal because there were so many leftovers. We had the same amount of people and we could just have eaten the leftovers.
Instead, Evan (a professional chef and friend) made a roast (that mom had wanted to make but we convinced her to let the chef cook), spinach pie, zucchini pie and various other sides, in addition to the leftovers.
That was our second amazing, crazy meal in two days.
So mom successfully stuffed everyone.
We ate our weight in food those two days. And we still had plenty to eat the next day.
Our trip was great and relaxing. We took silly pictures and exchanged gifts early in the morning.
Baros, Burak and I stayed an extra day and went shopping down by mom. Then we headed home in the afternoon to relax before I had to head back to work.
