Christmas came and went.....

....it was relaxed, stress free and just how we like it. We had an early Christmas day on the Sunday before as Michael & Natasha were heading down to her family in Hastings,Hawkes Bay. And as her 21st birthday was on Boxing day we suggested to Michael that he should go down there for the holidays rather than stay here and then have to travel down after the 25th. So that's what he did and they'll be there until after New Year. 

So back to the Sunday....the last Farmers market before Christmas and at 8am it was mobbed, but not so mobbed that I wanted to gouge someones eye out with a spoon! It was all very relaxed, we had a list, we got the things we needed, popped them in the car and went back and bought a Cornish pasty and a cup of coffee....a bit of a Sunday morning habit now.

Back home and although there was a fair bit of preparation it was nowhere near as time consuming as a traditional Christmas dinner, it's far too hot for one of those here and I don't miss it in the slightest.

Here is a link to my 2013 Christmas photos on facebook, I have added the recipes for the dishes with the relevant photographs. All courtesy of Food Magazine

The weather was so nice we were able to eat outside

For our starter/Entree

Individual Seafood Caesar salad

Then in was time for the main course and opening the bottles of bubbles

Warm potato salad, mustard & dill salad

 Bean salad, with cherry toms, avocado*, asparagus*, mint and basil 

with a lemon vinaigrette dressing 

*extras I added

Chicken roll with sage & onion and apricot stuffing was bought at a local free range butcher, sausage meat from our own freezer and supermarket bought ham.

Delicious!

We decided a break was needed before we hit the dessert and opened our presents.

There were no decorations this year, we didn't miss them either

The Bop it extreme proved challenging, I don't think I scored past 2 points!

Time for dessert, home made trifle

 and home made mince pies

A game of Uno with coffee & mince pies and a glass or two of brandy

The rest of the evening was spent lounging around watching movies it was a lovely day.

Christmas Day

It was just the two of us, we intended to just go with the flow, we had our traditional breakfast of ham and eggs and Joe had found himself a supplier of pork pies. Soggy Bottom Holdings(at Hamilton farmers market) make a very good 'proper' pork pie and so much better than anything you'd buy here in a supermarket which are awful.

The weather wasn't so good today and rain was forecast but we still headed off to Raglan and the beach regardless, the dogs were impatient to get going...

Tiger and Jinx however couldn't give a stuff!

As you can see, pretty cloudy!

A mutated panoramic shot, I'm still trying to figure out my new phone camera.

 We had our customary bottle of bubbles but then rain stopped play and we raced back to the car, drove to a different viewpoint to finish the bottle, well I finished the bottle, Joe was driving and he had to work night shift that evening, so a girl has to do what a girl has to do!

There's nothing quite like dipping your feet in the surf on Christmas day

Back home then for our Christmas lunch

 Gremolata side of salmon, warm potato salad, fresh asparagus, tomato & basil salad with balsamic and olive oil dressing plus leftovers from Sunday and a failed pavlova! Oops! 

Ah well can't get it right all of the time..

I hope you enjoyed your day, however you chose to spend it.

See ya soon