Early Christmas Celebrations - Dec 1 2018 (Part 1)
- Kaylin M
- Dec 29, 2018
- 5 min read
Christmas is finally over. It has been a whirlwind of a month, that’s for sure. I’ve been so busy with all of my shopping and celebrating that I’ve barely had any time to sit down and recap on my blog. This holiday season started off with a bang of a weekend and that first weekend of December is what this will post will be about.
Last year, you might remember, I had a very small Christmas dinner where I invited my best friend Paula and her boyfriend Ryan up and I had my first attempt at cooking a turkey. I loved hosting them last year so much that I decided to go a little bit bigger this year. I invited a group of friends up to our place in Peterborough. I booked off the weekend weeks in advance and sent out invitations to my three friends and their significant others. I agreed to make the big dishes like the turkey and mashed potatoes, but I wanted everyone else to bring a dish of their own. Paula always brings her broccoli and stuffing casserole, and it is always delicious. Josh agreed to make a dessert called Mango Float. Nobody else had tasted this dessert before, but it was mostly mangoes and whipped cream with sugar and it was yummy. I had a little bit more difficulty with what Taylor should bring. I had asked him to bring vegetables, but he had planned on bringing a salad. Unfortunately for him, lettuce was recalled so he couldn’t bring the salad, but I still needed those vegetables. After a bit of deliberating and debating, we decided that he would bring a vegetable medley (YES!) and buns.
I spent days cleaning the house and rearranging furniture so that we could accommodate 8 people. We had to move our dining room set into the living room so that we would have enough seating space for a sit-down dinner. I went out and bought all of my table settings and even made each person their own personalized place cards for seating. Then I had to pre-set the table and deep clean the house from top to bottom. I especially had to deep clean our bedroom so that I could create a “cat-free oasis” for Ryan since he is quite allergic to cats. I had asked everyone ahead of time to notify me if they planned on staying the night so that I could prepare for that. I knew that Paula and Ryan would stay over if Ryan’s allergies didn’t get too bad, so I had our room closed off and prepped just in case. Nobody else was planning on staying the night...or so I thought, but I’ll get to that later.
Paula was awesome because she came up a few days before the Saturday (Dec 1) to help me clean and prep. We always have so much fun together and while she was there, Blake let it slip that he had her for our Secret Santa exchange. I had planned a special sort of gift exchange this year. I had seen a tradition that occurs in Iceland posted all over Facebook. The tradition was to exchange books instead of standard gifts. I thought that was a great idea because I tend to get into funks with reading and I thought that maybe this would allow people to read books that, maybe, they wouldn’t have considered for themselves previously. Prior to the month of November, I had asked everyone to send me 3 book genres/styles that they enjoy reading or would be interested in reading. I didn’t want people to give me specific book titles because I wanted the gifters to have to choose what book to give. I wanted to give everyone a whole month to research and choose the best book for their person. Once I had everyone's requests, I carefully chose who I thought would be able to pick the best book for each person. The gift exchange happened after dinner and it went great! We each opened our books and took turns explaining what the story was about and why we chose the books that we did. Everybody seemed unsure, but excited, about their books...well mostly everyone. As well, we only had one issue of someone already having the chosen book and that was Josh, who gave me a very narrow genre of books of which he already owned 3. Oh well!
So, the evening started with everyone arriving around 3:30 pm. I had already put the turkey in the oven and pre-made the mashed potatoes. Blake was in charge of entertainment and had planned an extensive game of Dungeons and Dragons. Once everyone had arrived, he spent the better part of an hour creating each person’s characters before embarking on their journey. I didn’t participate because I was too busy in the kitchen, but I enjoy hearing my guests having fun. I served dinner around 6 pm. Unfortunately, I cooked the turkey according to the instructions and ignored the pop-up thermometer when it claimed, 45 minutes earlier than expected, that the turkey was ready. Long story short, my turkey was a little bit dry/overcooked and everything was slightly cold by the time the guests paused their DnD game and served themselves. So, although dinner tasted good, it didn’t go as well as I would have hoped. We all sat around the table and enjoyed our dinner and conversation before the book exchange. Afterwards, we had that delicious Mango Float that I mentioned earlier before everyone returned to their DnD journey and I returned to the kitchen for cleanup. Honestly, I was happy that everyone was out of my way so that I could clean everything up because there’s nothing worse than having a big party and having to spend the next day cleaning. So, I was happy to get it all done.
Once dinner was served and everything was tidy, I was exhausted! I ended up falling asleep on the couch briefly. It was getting late and everyone was still at my house!!! At one point, I just went to bed, but that didn’t last long since we still had stockings to open. I had asked everyone to bring a stocking stuffer to put in each person’s stockings. Nothing extravagant, just a dollar store goodie. I was in bed for maybe 20 minutes before everyone decided 11:30 pm was the perfect time to open our stockings. I was half asleep, but it was still fun. I had put extra thought into each of my stocking stuffers so that they were personal. Now, surely, it was time for bed. Except everyone was still here and were now considering staying over! (No! That was not the plan!) I was prepared for Paula and Ryan to stay over so that was fine. Taylor was Josh and Michelle’s ride, but since Taylor had stayed so long, Josh and Michelle - who live in Toronto - had no way of getting home because the trains would have stopped running by the time they returned to Whitby. Fine … I can accommodate 2 more. Josh had already asked to stay over, but that all depended on his transportation situation. The reason I wanted notification was because I would have had to (obnoxiously) blow up the air mattress … now it was way too late for that (I've got to be respectful to my neighbors), so I had to (unfortunately) kick Taylor and Daniel out. As well, since I hadn’t really planned on having people stay overnight, I hadn’t planned a breakfast, so every man for himself in the morning!
(Note to self: plan for the un-but-totally-expected situations, you know better!)
Overall, I loved the evening. I was happy with the food and the new traditions that we created with our friends. Blake and I are hoping to move out of our current living situation and into a home of our own in the new year. Hopefully, next year’s Christmas dinner with our friends will be even grander and we can invite more of our friends! I can’t wait!
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