MORE CHRISTMAS PHOTOS FROM THE 25TH, STARTING WITH CHATEAU DE CHANTILLY CAFE 12-29-25

I am writing this the evening of December 29th. It's very windy now and our electricity has been going on and off for the last three hours. I expect a lot of branches have been falling onto power lines. It is 32 degrees F. (2 degrees C). We have more blessed pinecones on the deck. I thought there surely couldn't be any left after all that had dropped off our tree the last couple of months, but there are at least three or four dozen out on the deck, with more falling, and they are even larger than before. We can hear them as they hit the deck. Our pine tree sure is shaking her skirts today. When Gregg picked up the trash bin, it had blown all the way down the street.

 On a whim we decided to go out for breakfast, though it was nearer lunch. It was 55 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius) a nice sunny day and too good to waste being stuck indoors. 

The place was hopping but we managed to get a table in the far back. A change of scenery from our usual spot. Wall to wall books, floor to ceiling here.

The tables are tiny and a little more crowded next to each other, but we were happy to get a spot on the end of the wall. The table next to us was vacant but the threesome two tables over might as well have been sitting in our laps. They were squeezed in on the same sized table we had, two sitting at the back having dragged an extra chair over, two ladies and a gentleman. One lady was very animated, and we heard all about her family gathering over the holidays. It didn't sound like it was a happy experience, but at least she was getting things off her chest. Not long afterwards two young ladies sat in between us, giving us a bit of a buffer, and the lady telling her friends all her woes, brought her decibels down a bit. Good to have friends to get the angst out of the way. The conversation returned to normal, not that I was being a nosy parker, but it was difficult not to hear everything that was being said. We can't complain, we knew it would be busy during the lunch hour and took a chance on getting a parking spot (we only had to circle once) and were lucky to get this table. There are a lot of college kids who make use of the cafe, and I see laptops and books on several tables. I think there is a 2-hour limit from the time anyone sits down. Next time we'll go in the off-hours which we usually do.

Above you can see Gregg's choice. He always gets the Cheese Danish and coke. Mine was an individual quiche, which was a change from my usually pastry, quite tasty. Shocked to say I am very tired of sweet things after the holiday. Even my vanilla latte was too sweet. We are going back to our every-once-in-a-while treat. I will be having my one cup of black coffee in the morning and tea for the rest of the day, along with a bowl of oatmeal, dried cranberries and blueberries or a banana for breakfast, or at least my good intentions tell me. Fortunately, it is one of my favorite breakfasts.

I had a chuckle at the next photo as we drove by the house. It's trash day as you can see, a much bigger one after the holidays. Yes, she even takes photos of trash, what can I say? My first thought was I bet somebody's mom is happy the old drum set had been put out to pasture and can give their ears a rest. My second thought was maybe a new, much bigger set had been acquired, maybe he is in a school band. This looked in pretty good shape. I hope somewhere here and between the trash place there will be a lucky child who will get a newish drum set. 

The rest of this post will be from Christmas Day.

A lovely ceramic Christmas Tree is a gift from our son and daughter-in-law, with a close-up of the tiny glowing cardinals below.

They also gave me this adorable glass teddy bear. 

The snowman is last year's gift from them.  You may have something like it as it is on a timer and comes on in the evening and shuts off before going to bed. It gives off a lovely warm glow, with little sparkly things floating around inside.

Son is a fun selfie taker. We usually take a lot more but dinner was ready and waiting and everyone had their appetite, but first....

this is us trying to sort out the Yorkshire Pudding. What can I say, I've been having trouble the last few Christmases and I was keeping my fingers crossed.

Let's just say it wasn’t a complete disaster…

but it didn't rise as nicely as last year when it sprang so high it had a fight with the top heating element. A nice thick pancake anyone? It actually tasted pretty good, but I think I have a mental block about Yorkshire Pudding now. Big mistake this time was my anxiety about burning the dang thing, and I not only lowered the rack - which was a good thing - but also lowered the heat during the process - bad thing -  plus we may have opened up the door too early. C'est la vie! I intend to get a lot of practice before next year's Christmas Dinner. Any tips out there will be gratefully appreciated.

The flowers Gregg gave me for our 50th Wedding Anniversary were still hanging in there, so I decided to keep them on display. The empty dishes will soon be filled with our meal. We had Roast Beef and Denise's new-style of flat, thick but tasty and what the heck pancake, Brown Gravy, Roasted Potatoes, asparagus and carrots. 

Another of our traditions growing up was the Yule Log but on special occasions we usually serve pumpkin pie and cherry pie with vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream or both.

That taller snowman is in three parts, bottom two contain the salt and pepper shaker, the top hat is a hollow container for mustard. This time he's just there for decoration. The two smaller snowmen to his right are a regular salt and pepper set. A few nibbles beforehand in a dish I found more years ago than I can remember, and in the photo after this one, there is a small dish in the shape of a sunflower that I use for dips. It has a sunflower handle on the spoon. Another gift from my darlings for a birthday last year.

One more shot of the kitchen table which we used buffet style once dishes were filled and sorry to say I forgot to take photos of our meal because well, I was still thinking of the blessed Yorkshire Pud!

Here is the table from the other end.

One more of the table set up in the dining room. I'm glad several of you said that you liked it. I had a hard time finding matching sets. During that good tidy-up session earlier in the year, I had tidied things into oblivion. Moving along, since childhood, I have always had the tradition of Christmas Crackers at each place setting, and I carried this on after marriage. My son loved them as a child and he still indulges me now, as does our sweet daughter-in-law and husband of course. I think they actually enjoy them. So, we sit down, pull the tapes in each end and wear on our heads our paper 'crowns' that fall out of the cracker. Little trinkets scatter on the table, an actual mini grater, spoon, I forget what else, and we read the funny jokes/facts inserted in each one as we start our meal. You can read the history of Christmas Crackers at this link. There is also a website that shows you how to make your own here. Pulling the crackers is a little tame now. When I was young, with each cracker pull, there was a flash and a bang where you felt your fingers singe a little bit. In my memory of it all anyhow but I still remember the heat on my fingers.

The painting on the wall (a closer look can be seen below), is of a Tudor house I used to walk by while in Worcester (UK). My dear other half had put out to sea for six months. I often went home to visit my parents, sister and brother-in-law on these deployments. This is before our son joined us. My niece was born much later when they lived in Scandinavia. I had passed by the house for many years on previous visits, from the age of 18, and it fascinated me, always loving the Tudor style. I noticed a shop had opened across the street on this particular visit, with a painting of the same house in their window. In I went as though drawn by a siren song. The owner of the shop was a very nice gentleman. He was also the artist and very happy to get his painting out of the window display.

This is the last of the rambles and photos from Christmas. 

Thanks for being such great friends throughout the past year, and if I am not able to visit before the end of this one, I would like to wish you all...

WHAT WE DID ON CHRISTMAS DAY

(My last jigsaw puzzle for the season.)

Wednesday, 12-25-24 - Christmas Day:

Early in the day we had a FaceTime call from my family across the pond. A lovely chat for about an hour. They had already had their festivities the day before. This was from my brother-in-law (who is more like a real brother as I have known him since I was 13 years old), and my niece and her beau, a delightful conversation.

Later, when son and daughter-in-law arrived, the four of us sat down at 2 o’clock for our meal. We set everything out on the kitchen table for everyone to help themselves and moved into the dining room. 

Another tradition since my childhood, Christmas Crackers at every place setting. Just before settling down to the meal, each person grabs the end of each cracker, forming a circle around the table and pulling each end. There’s a slight pop caused by the popper strip threaded through the cracker - you can see what those look like here - I also didn’t realize you could buy kits to make your own which I found online. I usually buy them on sale after Christmas, to be used for next time. 

Inside are 'crowns', folded-up tissue paper, which are worn during the meal. It is thought they may represent the crowns of the three wise men. Invariably these fall off heads during the meal and sometimes tear as they are so thin, but all good sports try to keep them on their heads until the end of the meal. There is also a small piece of paper inside written with a one-line groaner joke, and one sentence of trivia from somewhere in the world. Each person takes their turn reading theirs while everyone else begins their meal. We laugh at the groaners, and trivia learned is often interesting. 

A small trinket falls out of the cracker when pulled, a key chain, a compass, a type of wire puzzle, or a yo-yo, another tiny goody. Silly but fun and another tradition I introduced my own family to from childhood, and which we have enjoyed since our son was knee-high. I think they may be becoming popular in the States, as I see Christmas Crackers on sale in a lot of the stores. You can find more expensive looking trinkets inside depending on how much you want to pay for the crackers. And then if you make your own, any small gift can be put inside. If you would like to learn how these came about, you can click on this link.

The menu below has become our traditional meal, though the charcuterie board was new thanks to my dear other half who thought it would be a good idea for the hungry while waiting for the main meal. 

Menu:

Charcuterie Board, with three types of olives, cubes of feta, snap peas, small red peppers that were a little hot but not too much so. Gregg described them as tangy. There were also small, sweet red peppers, stuffed grape leaves and a pot of hummus. This was put out an hour before the meal.

Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding with Brown Gravy

Roast Potatoes, Carrots and Asparagus, with a Green Bean Casserole (all enjoyed but Gregg’s favorite was the casserole that his dear mother always made when growing up).

Dinner Rolls (we all like the Hawaiian Sweet Rolls)

Dessert: Pumkin Pie (son’s favorite), Cherry Pie (Gregg’s favorite), and because my family always had one on the Christmas table since I can remember, a Chocolate Yule Log.  

A bottle of Prosecco, no red wine today because I forgot to put it on the shopping list but had the Prosecco already chilled.

We always try to pick things on the menu with everyone’s taste in mind and everyone enjoyed their meal…

and ah now, the Yorkshire Pudding. It was decided to cook it in the 9" glass pie plate, a jigsaw puzzle to try and fit everything in and we had the two ovens full. They are smaller than a regular oven would be but still an okay size. 

The plan was to take the roast out to rest, leave the potatoes in to continue roasting and pop the Yorkshire Pudding in to cook the 20 minutes on 475, as the recipe suggested. Well…I said…that rack looks awfully high, but Yorkshire Pudding was put in and 20 minutes later when the timer went off, we opened the door.  Let’s just say we all had a good laugh and I said once again, “Good grief!” 

It had risen extra high and had ‘grown’ up into and around the elements. When Gregg pulled the dish out, half the Yorkshire Pudding stayed. We couldn’t stop laughing. We won’t be making Yorkshire for a while now, but what was salvaged was surprisingly tasty. 

Now, all this being said, it is very important to give the pudding room to ‘grow’.  Place on the rack in the middle of the oven.  And most definitely don’t use the top shelf. 

Do not use more than the 2 tablespoons of beef fat either (click on the link here for when I actually cooked our previous test-run Yorkshire Puddings.

When our darlings had left, Gregg set to dislodging burnt bits of Yorkshire Pud from the now cold elements. He will have another go tomorrow he said.

Here’s a compilation of photos thanks to the new app I downloaded on my iPad a few days ago.

The other gift from my Darlings was a new ornament for my wing themed tree. The first in a series I was told. It's beautiful and best of all it's made out of wood!  So many intricate little parts, I would dearly love to see how it was made from that first design to cutting out the pieces, painting them and putting altogether. This part of my curiosity comes from when I used to cut out my own designs and paint ornaments back in my craft show days, all painted on wooden shapes.

Our daughter-in-law asked if we would like to hear her sing again and I was very happy as I never like to impose, especially as they had to leave to go on to her parent's home soon.  She chose O Holy Night and one sung in German, Silent Night. It was amazing to hear her! I have shared her videos in German with my brother-in-law who asked me if she spoke the language as her dialect was perfect. She doesn't actually speak German she has told me before, but she knows many songs in that language. How she gets up to those high notes impresses me no end. She has the purest voice, a soprano.

Our Darlings left a few hours later straight from our house to our daughter-in-law’s parents for their second meal which was served in the evening.

Late afternoon the phone rang and it was the second Facetime that day with our niece and her beau. Her Dad had gone home by then and we chatted away for another hour, telling each other about our day and generally catching up on each other’s news. We both had our Yorkshire Pudding stories and both had a good laugh. Neither of us will be making it any time soon.  I for one am now tired of it and yes, gasp!  Well, at least til next year and we will give it another go. Did the heart good to be chatting to my niece, that’s for sure.

We relaxed for the rest of the day. That was our Christmas. 

I look forward to reading about yours very soon. I'm so tired I am off to bed, and so is my dear other half. I will be back tomorrow.