Christmas Day!

So here it finally is...the Christmas Day post that is just about as large as the turkey we devoured on the day itself! What a wonderful Christmas it was this year. I will try to keep the stories to a minimum as I have enough pictures for this day to choke a horse!

We woke up at Mer's house to a cute little Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree all lit up and decorated, complete with a load of colourfully wrapped presents stashed underneath. Very shortly after we woke up, we had to start thinking about getting the 28 pound turkey into that oven, as 28 pounds of poultry tends to take quite a while to cook!

Okay, I know putting up a picture of a giant, raw turkey is kind of gross... but I really wanted to do the before and after thing. It looked incredible after! You will see...

Christmas day was such a GORGEOUS day! It was sunny and extremely warm, look at these blue skies through the sky light!

We opened up our presents before breakfast (the way Christmas presents must be opened). It was so much fun this year. My immediate family and I made all home-made gifts for each other to open on Christmas day, since we were going shopping in Seattle later on for our real gifts...

Here is a picture of some of my stash from Christmas morning! Mom knit me those gorgeous, soft mittens, and Dad SEWED me an apron (I have the best Dad in the entire world)! Ian made great gifts for my parents in his shop class, but apparently ran out of time to make a third item...so from him I received a box of chocolates. It was equally appreciated though (I'm sure you've noticed my love for chocolate by now)!

For breakfast we had poached eggs with hollandaise sauce (a favorite of mine), bacon, and Italian Christmas bread.

And some tequila...

I am obviously not a big enough drinker, I think the tequila at breakfast really knocked me out... I had a big nap after opening presents and eating breakfast!

When I finally woke up, I had a shower and got a little dressed up for Christmas. Very shortly after this (as my showers tend to take quite some time...) the guests started to arrive!

Mer had a party of 15 over (very impressive) for Christmas dinner, and we laughed and took pictures and munched on Mer's delicious salmon mousse as we waited for the much anticipated feast to be ready.

I think me and Chloaye polished off almost the whole plate of the mousse...

And then finally the moment we had all been waiting for had arrived...the turkey was crisp and golden and most importantly out of the oven! Nice work Uncle Peter.

With the cooking of the turkey complete, the kitchen quickly housed a flurry of activity as everyone rushed to heat up and finish up the dishes they were told to make!

Here's Peter and Chloaye whipping up some gravy!

And very importantly, the stuffing turned out beautifully!

Soon enough, everything was prepared and laid out, ready for the taking!

Here's everything that was on the island!

This is what Tatomme had instead of turkey...tofurky! You can get the recipe for it on her blog here.

Here's my LOADED plate. I hadn't eaten so much in one sitting in a long time... It was wonderful...

The turkey was moist and perfect, the gravy flavorful, and all the sides delectable. The sides were: brussles sprouts with hollandaise sauce, peas with a little bit of a curry flair to them (very tasty), ambrosia salad, mashed sweet and white potatoes, and a wonderfully festive broccoli salad with dried cranberries. Mmm!

For dessert, Aunty Daphne made a gorgeous and extremely tasty hazelnut torte!

After dinner, my family and I dragged our bloated selves to the living room to do a little Chinese gift exchange type thing, which was very funny.

As you can see, I take my present picking out very seriously...

It was a wonderful Christmas filled with food, family and Flanagan noses. I couldn't ask for anything more, I loved it!

xoxo

Mariel