Christmas 2025

[sartoric]

Our traditional Christmas drink - the mango margarita. Enjoyed at 11.50am, to get the party started.

[Maison Rustique]

We had a lovely day--some things didn't quite go as planned but nothing dire. Well, except the fog. It was a foggy drive to Topeka but not horrid. Originally, the fog warning was set to expire at 10 am. By the time I left at 9:30, it had expanded to noon. At some point shortly after that, it extended to 2 am today. I am not a fan of driving in the dark. I ended up leaving later than usual, so not only was it dark, but the fog was some of the worst I've driven through. By the time I got around 25 miles from home, I couldn't even see the exits on the freeway. It was terrifying. I made it safely, but I'm still tense and exhausted.

 

I did not take a single photo all day.

[chromedome]

12 hours ago, MaryIsobel said:

We had brunch - copious amounts of food - but I lost my mind and forgot to take picturesn because I found out that I'm going to be a GRANDMA IN JUNE!!! Best gift ever🥰

Woo hoo!

 

So... six months old for next Christmas. Just about right for wide-eyed and highly photogenic bewilderment.

[YvetteMT]

@MaryIsobel congrats!!

@sartoric that's my kind of tradition.

 

[lemniscate]

I was really pleased how my schnitzel came out, I think someone took a picture, I didn't because I was focused on the process.   I found out I prefer schnitzel with lemon squeeze vs. gravy.  Dinner was al fresco and we played Bingo (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) for a while which is an all ages game for our group.  The weather was a bit overcast but the sun eventually peeked though.  Peaceful   A selection of pie slices from Rock Springs Cafe was the dessert offerings.  I went up a couple days before Christmas and grabbed a selection.   

 

I've been imbibing with the ube flavored egg nog every morning while off work.   so smooth.  

 

[haresfur]

9 minutes ago, lemniscate said:

I was really pleased how my schnitzel came out, I think someone took a picture, I didn't because I was focused on the process.   I found out I prefer schnitzel with lemon squeeze vs. gravy.  Dinner was al fresco and we played Bingo (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) for a while which is an all ages game for our group.  The weather was a bit overcast but the sun eventually peeked though.  Peaceful   A selection of pie slices from Rock Springs Cafe was the dessert offerings.  I went up a couple days before Christmas and grabbed a selection.   

 

I've been imbibing with the ube flavored egg nog every morning while off work.   so smooth.  

 

 

What meat schnitzel? I usually do chicken breast, either as parma, or slice it up into chicken katsu with Japanese curry. Now that you mention it, I want to do the lemon squeeze.

[lemniscate]

13 minutes ago, haresfur said:

 

What meat schnitzel? I usually do chicken breast, either as parma, or slice it up into chicken katsu with Japanese curry. Now that you mention it, I want to do the lemon squeeze.

 

It was veal.   One of my elderly relatives was mentioning how they used to eat veal a lot when they were young, so I splurged on a mail order veal roast and made the cutlets.  Veal is not something found in supermarkets around here.

[chromedome]

By request, some photos of the cookie binge. 

 

First, here's an overview of the spread. 

 

...and some of the decorated cookies. 

 

 

Closeups of a couple of 'em (note the food-colouring stains on the fingers...). Last pic is cookies monogrammed for three grandkids out west (initials S, M, and L, because the yellow icing gooped a bit and they're not entirely as pretty as I'd have liked). 

    

 

Glad to have it all done with for another year; they're all packed up and ready for mailing/hand delivery. For the curious, if you scroll back to the panoramic view, we have (clockwise from top right): snowman sugar cookies, Christmas tree sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, the three big personalized sugar cookies, some zimmtsternen, vanillekipfeln (not sure of the spelling on that, there may be an 'r' in there somewhere toward the end), a shortbread-ish ball cookie known to us as "Russian tea cakes" but which is also known as "Pecan meltaways" and many other things, linzers with raspberry and apricot filling, the "faux linzers" I spoke of earlier, gingerbread snowflakes and gingerbread people, and finally snowflake sugar cookies. 

I had tubs with additional quantities of several of these, but this was enough to give you the idea. Not pictured were ginger crinkles, which are much like gingersnaps except soft and chewy (I'd parked those on top of the fridge and forgotten them until after the pics were taken), and chocolate-filled sandwich cookies because I realized while setting up the photo that I hadn't actually made the ganache or filled them yet.

[Maison Rustique]

Wow!! That's a lot of cookies!! 

[Duvel]

Lunch on Christmas day in Catalunya is Escudell i carn d’olla (or soup and meat from the pot). Tradition in my wifes family dictates that every family of the 5 siblings of her parents takes over one festive day, and my parents-in-law have the first Christmas day. So I make soup …

 

The escudella is a two day affair. You boil pigs ears, snouts, skin, beef short rib …

 

 

Chicken carcasses …
 

 

Salt bones, beef bones, ham bones …
 

 

in a gigantic pot outside the house. Two days. The result equals a great ramen stock - salty, umami, a lot of body: it gels once it cools just a timy bit …

 

 

 

Veggies …
 

 

 

 

Once the stock is ready, potatoes, cabbage, blood sausage and regular sausages are boiled in it …

 

 

 

 

 

After that, the pilota - a giant meatball, heavily spiced with garlic and parsley and star of the show - is gently poached.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile the guests arrive and start with pica pica. I prepared everything, but was too busy to take a picture of the prepared table. It is traditionally enjoyed with red vermouth or beer …

 

 

 

Just before service, large pasta shells called galets (“cookies”) stuffed with meat are boiled and the soup is served with them as first course.

 

 

Wines …

 

 

Everyone happily slurping away …

 

 

Second course is a sampler of all the meats, cabbage and potatoes from the pot, served with olive oil and salt.

 

 

Third course is almost irrelevant, but consists of chicken poached in its own juices together with sweet wine-macerated dried fruits (plums, raisins) and nuts …

 

 

… followed by a fourth course of stewed apples with savory minced meat filling). 

 

 

The dinner concludes with turrons (assorted sweets probably unchanged since the middle ages), cava (sparkling wine) and brandy. And some whisly for me 🤗

 

 

And the kids citing traditional Christmas poems and collecting money from everyone. Little one did well …

 

 

Total duration was about 5 hours. Definitely no complaints …

 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Duvel (log)

[rotuts]

@Duvel

 

Very  impressive .

 

' outdoors '  due to various aromas ?

 

did guests have to bring their own chairs ?

[ElsieD]

@Duvel  Wow, just wow!

[Shelby]

10 hours ago, chromedome said:

By request, some photos of the cookie binge. 

 

First, here's an overview of the spread. 

 

...and some of the decorated cookies. 

 

 

Closeups of a couple of 'em (note the food-colouring stains on the fingers...). Last pic is cookies monogrammed for three grandkids out west (initials S, M, and L, because the yellow icing gooped a bit and they're not entirely as pretty as I'd have liked). 

    

 

Glad to have it all done with for another year; they're all packed up and ready for mailing/hand delivery. For the curious, if you scroll back to the panoramic view, we have (clockwise from top right): snowman sugar cookies, Christmas tree sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, the three big personalized sugar cookies, some zimmtsternen, vanillekipfeln (not sure of the spelling on that, there may be an 'r' in there somewhere toward the end), a shortbread-ish ball cookie known to us as "Russian tea cakes" but which is also known as "Pecan meltaways" and many other things, linzers with raspberry and apricot filling, the "faux linzers" I spoke of earlier, gingerbread snowflakes and gingerbread people, and finally snowflake sugar cookies. 

I had tubs with additional quantities of several of these, but this was enough to give you the idea. Not pictured were ginger crinkles, which are much like gingersnaps except soft and chewy (I'd parked those on top of the fridge and forgotten them until after the pics were taken), and chocolate-filled sandwich cookies because I realized while setting up the photo that I hadn't actually made the ganache or filled them yet.

This is an extraordinary amount of talent and work!  Anyone who is getting these beautiful cookies is a very lucky person!

1 hour ago, Duvel said:

Lunch on Christmas day in Catalunya is Escudell i carn d’olla (or soup and meat from the pot). Tradition in my wifes family dictates that every family of the 5 siblings of her parents takes over one festive day, and my parents-in-law have the first Christmas day. So I make soup …

 

The escudella is a two day affair. You boil pigs ears, snouts, skin, beef short rib …

 

 

Chicken carcasses …
 

 

Salt bones, beef bones, ham bones …
 

 

in a gigantic pot outside the house. Two days. The result equals a great ramen stock - salty, umami, a lot of body: it gels once it cools just a timy bit …

 

 

 

Veggies …
 

 

 

 

Once the stock is ready, potatoes, cabbage, blood sausage and regular sausages are boiled in it …

 

 

 

 

 

After that, the pilota - a giant meatball, heavily spiced with garlic and parsley and star of the show - is gently poached.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile the guests arrive and start with pica pica. I prepared everything, but was too busy to take a picture of the prepared table. It is traditionally enjoyed with red vermouth or beer …

 

 

 

Just before service, large pasta shells called galets (“cookies”) stuffed with meat are boiled and the soup is served with them as first course.

 

 

Wines …

 

 

Everyone happily slurping away …

 

 

Second course is a sampler of all the meats, cabbage and potatoes from the pot, served with olive oil and salt.

 

 

Third course is almost irrelevant, but consists of chicken poached in its own juices together with sweet wine-macerated dried fruits (plums, raisins) and nuts …

 

 

… followed by a fourth course of stewed apples with savory minced meat filling). 

 

 

The dinner concludes with turrons (assorted sweets probably unchanged since the middle ages), cava (sparkling wine) and brandy. And some whisly for me 🤗

 

 

And the kids citing traditional Christmas poems and collecting money from everyone. Little one did well …

 

 

Total duration was about 5 hours. Definitely no complaints …

 

 

And, yes, WOW.  I would so love to dive into a bowl of that soup.  You did amazing!

[C. sapidus]

That sounds like an amazing soup stock @Duvel

 

And wow, quite the cookie extravaganza @chromedome

[ElsieD]

@chromedome  That is an amazing array of cookies.  That's what I call a job well done.  Congratulations!

[lemniscate]

@chromedome   I tried to do the dozens of cookie + decorating thing once and realized how hard it is on my upper back to hold the piping bags steady.   Never did it again, you definitely have to have stamina.  And I was a much younger person back then and gave up due to the pain of decorated cookies.

 

@Duvel  I am in awe of that soup.  That reminds me of the old children's story "Stone Soup", at least how I imagined the soup to be at the end of the story.   I want to make something like that, just need to find a few dozen or so like minded carnivores to participate.   I saw a video of a Calabrian soup, with all the possible pieces of pork on Pasta Grammer youtube channel and have been mildly obsessed with the process and the celebration of these types of soup.  I know there's a ton of work and planning but Wow, the payoff looks amazing.  Hopefully you enjoyed your own fruits of the labor as much as the guests.

[chromedome]

7 minutes ago, lemniscate said:

@chromedome   I tried to do the dozens of cookie + decorating thing once and realized how hard it is on my upper back to hold the piping bags steady.   Never did it again, you definitely have to have stamina.  And I was a much younger person back then and gave up due to the pain of decorated cookies.

 

I'm 60-something, so I can't crank stuff out like I did in my 40s (see my back-in-the-day foodblog), but you're right... it's hard on the back unless you're really, really careful about matching the height of your work surface to the height of your chair (or your standing height, as the case may be). In this case I was mostly using small parchment cornets, rather than a piping bag. The ones requiring a solid fill I just dipped, rather than piping and then flooding with the royal icing, because although the result isn't as professional-looking it's a whole lot faster. 

 

The fun bit is doing the Christmas trees, dotting them with "decorations" in different colors. When I make my cornets for the higher-volume piping (like the blue decorations on the sugar-cookie snowflakes, or the white ones on the gingerbread cookies), there's always a strip of parchment left over at the end. I use those to make smaller cones for the little "detail stuff" like this. I do one color at a time, starting with blue because I make lots of that for the snowflakes, and then finish up with small bits of yellow and red that I mix up on the fly. I just try to mix 'em all up randomly, so each tree is different. 

Occasionally I see specialized, themed "quins" for decorating cakes and cookies, and maybe one day I'll find some that would work as miniature decorations. I did find some mini candy-cane quins a couple of years ago, and put them on some of the trees with tweezers, but I didn't have time to do it properly with all of them and multiple kinds of decorations. Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure I remember seeing yellow star-shaped quins at Bulk Barn (for the Americans, that's a wonderful bulk-store chain* we have up here), so I could maybe give each tree its own star next year. That'd be worth the extra effort, maybe. 

Last year I did one where all the "decorations" were at the bottom, and told my GF "Little kids decorated that one."

*Bulk Barn's site: https://www.bulkbarn.ca/en/Products

A young American's reaction to encountering BB during a visit went viral in 2022, and it's still fun: https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2022/11/american-tourist-bulk-bar/

[Darienne]

1 hour ago, C. sapidus said:

That sounds like an amazing soup stock @Duvel

 

And wow, quite the cookie extravaganza @chromedome

Ditto on both counts.  My mouth just hung open...

 

[TdeV]

Oooh, I'm going to revisit this page a few times!

 

Bravo @chromedome ! Many years ago my MIL used to make a cookie extravaganza. It provided DAYS of delicious nibbling. Sorry to not be a member of your family. 😂

 

Brilliant @Duvel ! What on earth did your inlaws do before you arrived? Come to think of it, FOUR Other Families are going to do this again in the next FOUR days? I would love to have been able to participate in the making of that soup . . . 🙄

 

Thank you friends for your lovely pictures.

[SLB]

14 hours ago, chromedome said:

By request, some photos of the cookie binge. 

Oh.My.GAWD.  Everything is so beautifully delightfully festive.  Those pix really cheered me, I'm so glad you posted them.  

 

And @Duvel?  No words.  Because, my jaw is on the floor.  

[weinoo]

Rather than do a bunch of work/cooking, the tradition here on Christmas eve (and Christmas day, as well) is to go out for Chinese food.

 

Uncle Lou is a Cantonese restaurant on Mulberry Street, in Chinatown.  One of the newer ones, and they allow you to bring wine, in addition to having a small wine list.  

 

Six of us had a nice dinner...

 

 

Not shown is the owner struggling to open a 2001 Chateau Musar (we forgot to bring a Durand).  He managed to get it open, however!

 

 

Whole duck to start.

 

 

Whole fried red snapper to finish.  In between, stir-fried pea shoots, chicken chow fun, a beef dish with garlic chives, pan-fried dumplings, a fried rice dish, etc.

 

 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by weinoo (log)

[Shelby]

30 minutes ago, weinoo said:

Rather than do a bunch of work/cooking, the tradition here on Christmas eve (and Christmas day, as well) is to go out for Chinese food.

 

Uncle Lou is a Cantonese restaurant on Mulberry Street, in Chinatown.  One of the newer ones, and they allow you to bring wine, in addition to having a small wine list.  

 

Six of us had a nice dinner...

 

 

Not shown is the owner struggling to open a 2001 Chateau Musar (we forgot to bring a Durand).  He managed to get it open, however!

 

 

Whole duck to start.

 

 

Whole fried red snapper to finish.  In between, stir-fried pea shoots, chicken chow fun, a beef dish with garlic chives, pan-fried dumplings, a fried rice dish, etc.

 

 

 

That sounds so relaxing and fun!

[FauxPas]

 

@Duvel, wow that meal is a labour of love! Such a feast! 

 

@chromedome, all those cookies! Wow, great job. 

 

I'm guessing most people know what a Cookie Walk is? Basically, people cook and donate various cookies which are then sold to raise money for charitable causes. For the one we had here for L'Arche Comox Valley you pay $15 for an empty box and then you get to walk around and fill your box with whatever varieties of cookie you wish. 

 

A friend of mine loves to bake and she made dozens and dozens of cookies for the Christmas Cookie Walk this year. She kept some extras in her freezer and dropped them off with us yesterday, knowing we are still under the weather. Next Christmas, I plan to help her with the baking and decorating! 

 

I especially liked the little reindeer faces - simple but effective! And Nanaimo Bars because they are just one of the best things ever. Here are a few of them:

 

 

 

 

 

[patti]

On 12/24/2025 at 11:41 AM, FauxPas said:

 

Unfortunately, husband and I have just come down with a particularly nasty virus and had to cancel our Christmas dinner plans. I'm not up to cooking (or even for shopping for the last few required items) and we certainly don't want to pass this bug on to others, so tourtières will stay in freezer for now. Tentative plan is to reschedule for NY Eve dinner. We'll see how we feel, we are really quite sick right now.  😞

 

A local restaurant chain (White Spot) does a fairly decent packaged turkey dinner for two. It's designed for reheating with par-cooked veggies, etc. We were able to pick one up yesterday and will have that tonight and/or tomorrow. 

 

Also, our heat pump shut down overnight. We reset the breakers and the fan started to run, but it doesn't seem to be heating house. Waiting for a service call. We do have a gas fireplace and it's not really cold outside but still....  🙂

 

 

On 12/24/2025 at 12:31 PM, Tropicalsenior said:

I feel for you and your husband. What a terrible Christmas present. I came down with a nasty cold Monday and now my plans to make tourtiere have been put on hold. I just can't summon the energy. I'll probably make it for New Years Eve. I have a pork roast thawing out and we'll just make do with that.

 

@FauxPas and @Tropicalsenior, I’m so sorry that y’all have been sick and had to rearrange plans. Wishing speedy recoveries to all, and hope y’all managed to enjoy at least some bit of the holiday.