Christmas Day

Christmas Day arrived and it was definitely a white one here in VT. First job of the day was of course to get the turkey in the oven...

A lovely locally grown Misty Knoll turkey (not shot in the back garden!). A whopping 25lbs!

Adam certainly knows how to treat a bird right... here he is rubbing butter into all the important parts

In it goes... 9.30am-ish

With the Christmas Eve service not really happening as anticipated Jayne and her folks went to church. Turns out it was the bishop who led the service, and there was a band and everything so it was quite a jolly and uplifting event. Even Jayne's Dad got blessed by the bish and we all felt better for it! :)

Back to the house...

Returning home we found John out building a snowman... Margaret didn't need any encouragement to get stuck in too.



Done!

Booootiful!

The turkey took FOREVER to cook, which thankfully gave Jayne time to redo her bread sauce after she usefully strained it right down the sink after several hours of lovingly infusing the cream with onion and cloves etc... courtsey of pregnancy brain I think!? It also gave us time to watch the Queen's speech on YouTube. Dinner had been planned for 2.30-3.00pm and we finally got it served up just after 4pm.

Fully loaded

Adam remembers to do his peas at the last minute... no, he can't do without them even tho we already had turkey, sausages wrapped in bacon, roast potatoes, stuffing, bread sauce, sprouts, parsnips, carrots, swede and gravy!

The obligatory party hat auto-timer Christmas photo

Everyone puzzles over the table presents Rosemary got for us all

"Here son, try this one... it's easy!?" says Rosemary

"I can't do it!" Adam has a small paddy.

Finally it was time to open the pressies... Only 6.30pm!!

Safi enthusiastically unwraps her 'Chuckit'

She was almost done when the fangs and devil eyes were revealed!

Margaret looks full of mischief as Derick opens one of his gifts from his loving wife...

errr... yes! ;)

Adam opens his book from his loving wife... awww! Brought a tear to all our eyes... sniff!

Finally it was Christmas pudding time! I think it was 8.30pm by now... well, you can't rush these things :)

The day finished up with much gaming (Rummikub, Apples to Apples, Trivial Pursuits, Scattergories) and we even managed to squeeze in the traditional turkey sandwich for 'afternoon tea' somewhere after 10pm. Perfick!