Christmas Fast Approaching

My preparations for Christmas Day continue.  There will be three of us not drinking during the day, Mum, Lilian and me, because I will be driving them back home later in the day.

I decided I should try and make something festive to drink and know that Mulled Wine is traditional but even though the alcohol can be boiled out during the warming process I didn't want to take the risk because (a) mulled wine doesn't taste so good if it is boiled and (b) I just don't trust my luck if I get stopped by the sneaky Astonomeia!!!

By definition wine is and alcoholic drink made from fermented grape juice and whilst this had red grape juice in it, it was completely devoid of alcohol so I probably should have labeled it Mulled Punch.

I did a tasting and whilst not packing the 'punch' of Mulled Wine it had a very similar flavour and will probably taste very nice when warmed.  Another tick in the preparation box.  I even remembered to go across to Lakis and Argy's to get everything out of the freezer so it could defrost naturally over the next day or so.

We had a very welcome visitor this morning - Rich came in for coffee and to take some soup and curry back with him which will come in handy because his Mum isn't feeling 100% and they are due to travel to Limassol on Sunday for a three day festive break.  We have told them that if they don't end up going we will happily plate up a Christmas Lunch for them and pop it round.  Originally they were due to spend the day with us anyway.

After a relatively bright morning the weather deteriorated as forecast and as we traveled down to Polis for some last minute bits and pieces the cloud was hanging in the valley and over the tops of the mountains.  By the time we got to Polis is was pouring with rain and we hadn't taken account of the time so the electrical shop which has our faulty dehumidifier was closed for lunch and it was so awful we couldn't be arsed to sit outside and wait for half an hour.

As I said I got all the freezer stuff out from Argy's and checked what was what and tried to put together a bit of a plan for Monday.  We have two turkey crowns and a gammon along with pigs in blankets, two types of stuffing and bread sauce and a myriad of vegetables and Gail is doing the brussels to save me the job (and the smell).  We certainly won't starve that's for sure!

We did a dry run on the table decoration.  John's new table top will make a huge difference to the amount of room people have which is great.  Hopefully people will love the decor and the ambiance and it will help to make our Christmas Day a little bit magical - something that you lose when children are no longer a part of your celebrations.

We ended the day with a trip out for a meal at Petradaki where we were meeting up with Marianne and Jeff for a catch up.  Blimey it was busy in there but I have to say the restaurant looked very festive and we had a nice leisurely meal, good food and good company!