Another Christmas over.............

It's Boxing Day here and Christmas Day has come and gone. It was a fantastic day weather wise, this was our 6th Christmas here and the first one that felt 'right'. Up until the day before none of us were particularly enthused about the whole affair, as Christmas is just not the same as the UK. But yesterday was different, we drove down to Raglan which has become a bit of a tradition here, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, it was hot and the sea was turquoise. As I sipped a glass of Lindauer Fraise walking along the sand, the waves rolled up gently and over my feet, the dogs playing by my side, it came to me suddenly, 'This IS right, it's So right it's perfect!" I've been hearing of the snow in the UK and thought why would I be missing a cold, icy and snowy day in the UK when I can look at this! There was no competition, I'm still not fussed with the Christmassy stuff, the tree will be back down by Monday I expect, Christmas Day is over. We have the rest of the holiday perioed to enjoy and I would like my small lounge back to normal.

Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve was a nice relaxing day, we had a few things we needed to do such as have a quick tidy up, it wasn't anything major. We decided to bottle up some wine we had made before Easter, it had been sitting in a barrell since then!


We ended up with 24 bottles...still to be tasted..


Joe prepared the ham and glazed it, we would be having some for dinner that night and we have ham and eggs for breakfast Christmas morning. I made a trifle for Christmas day dessert.
Jam roll slices in the bottom, topped with sliced strawberries from the veggie garden, strawberry jelly mix poured over the top, then once set some lovely thick custard poured on top and popped back in the fridge


All we had left to do then was wrap the pressies and relax.


Christmas Day
We awoke to clear blue skies and the promise of a glorious day and it cetainly delivered. By the time brought me a cuppa in bed he had already watered the veggie garden and had washed and cleaned the turkey.
Once out of bed, but still in our PJ's we began preparing some of the food for Christmas day dinner. Joe picked me out a lovely big onion and dug up an elephant garlic, they were both so impressive you need to see them!!





I made the stuffing,
Some crusts of bread, dry toasted in a fry pan
Onion
garlic
Pine nuts
Fresh sage leaves torn into pieces
Balsamic vinegar, a big glug
Salt & pepper
2 big tblsp cranberry jelly










Then it was time for Joe to get up close and personal with the turkey, I don't like touching it! :(
Stuffing up it's bum!Such indignities turkey must suffer! :D

And sausage meat where it used to keep it's head!



Matt and James called in to see us

Then we had breakfast



Then it was off to the beach (in pictures)
Our 'Tradition' of taking the dogs on Christmas Day...Off to Raglan.





















Pohutukawa - New Zealand Christmas Tree






On the way back we stopped at a viewpoint and took these, it's not often that it so clear, there is always some cloud hanging around..


When we got home, we picked some veg from the garden...




The onions and shallots drying in the sun..



Christmas dinner...


Colin our neighbour joined us for dinner



A perfect end to a perfect day!