Well today was the day we trooped down the hall for presents... and some wonderful gifts there were. There was even a portable studio and lighting kit for one small slave (to enable better quality pics of shoes and toys). Well that was the excuse; the real reason is that like all keen hobbyists He is trying to infect one with his particular disease. Best of all though the nasty, large, painful presents are all lost in the mail for the moment. Honestly a girl has never felt so safe...
Of course that feeling was temporary... in fact there were signs of how temporary it was going to be...
It started last night when the first slice of fruitcake appeared with a tiny cow sitting atop it. OK a manger (ish) theme perhaps? It turned out that as the year had been a little hectic she hadn't used the cute decorations one picked up for her cupcakes (which for the record are divine and a thing one likes to actively encourage). Rather than waste them she decided to use them on the Christmas cake. In hindsight one should have seen it as an omen...
We meandered back later on for lunch. Now we voted against the traditional hot Christmas dinner this year. In part because after the turkey incident we were none too keen to have another repeat and because we thought something simple would be less stressful for her. That was the idea; of course the reality would indicate that nothing in this household would be that easy. In spite of the simple menu of prawns and crab salad she still managed to make a break for it round the edges...
First she had come up to see what time to get lunch ready for, which we came to an agreement on and toddled down at the appointed time to find everything was still in the fridge. Then she put on a Christmas DVD for us... and proceeded to slice the homemade bread throughout it... using an electric carving knife. Actually that one might have been a kindness... Anyway she then proceeded to bring out the food in what can only be described as an eclectic manner. That is to say bread, sea food, salads, followed by cutlery, then the actual serving utensils... well one set of them... followed by glasses and an exploding bottle of sparkling apple juice. OK that last one can happen to anybody, but one is still unsure what the bowl of gummy bears was doing on the table from the get go... they did look festive though.
We proceeded to work through lunch as she bemoaned the loss of the cooked lunch, and insist that it was really no trouble at all. Given the haphazard nature of lunch one is unconvinced by that particular assertion... but we may let her have her head next year in the name of science. In the end as we cleared the table, after convincing her that tipping the lemon and prawn infused finger bowls into the pot plants might not be a good idea, we brought out Grandma's infamous trifle. Yeah for the record all that booze mixed with dairy products was not enough to stop one being profoundly disturbed by her inclusion of blue jelly on the top of it.
As she went to get the homemade sweets to finish off the meal, He reached out for an after dinner mint... to find that they were Turkish delight. It seems she had picked up the wrong tin and as they were a good price had been reluctant to exchange them...
Maybe what one is witnessing is not the beginnings of old age taking root.
Maybe messing with peoples' food is a mother daughter thing...
It might account for why His sister made the chocolate spiders with milk chocolate this year instead of the dark kind, and why she stuck jellies on their backs turning them into red backs...
They are trying to kill Christmas... nods it's the only explanation
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