Mince Pies and Mess

“Christmas is a holiday that persecutes the lonely, the frayed, and the rejected.” Jimmy Cannon

Nobody could say I am a quitter. I will complain, whine, whinge, nag, spout a few tantrums or cry a tear or two, but I rarely give up. I am a veteran wife with a 20 year badge on my lapel.

That mincemeat was driving me insane. So I had another stab at it. Eventually, the currants were found at the local Turkish shop, and my search for brown sugar was exchanged for Zuckerrübensirup… a German version of molasses. Thanks for all your suggestions, I did try the Reformhaus (local health food store), but they were all sold out, and the shop assistant was so nasty she made me want to shout at her… something along the lines of “Oh, go eat a hamburger!” (you can see that I am doing my best to blend in).

Of course, as chance would have it, I didn’t read the recipe properly. This meant a little improvising. In place of the 300g Fresh or Frozen Cranberries, I had ONE… did you read that… ONE packet of 125g dried Cranberries. Not good. Oh well, she says… I tossed them in and made up the difference with some spare dried figs and dates that were lurking in the back of the pantry.

By this stage, I have started to feel the effects of the port that has cooked off… the fumes have made me a little light-headed, resulting in a bit of a haphazard tossing of ingredients into the pot. Not sure what I was doing when I wrote the shopping list, imagine my surprise when I realise the recipe also required dried cranberries… but as I had already used those, I put in some dried apricots… and took a good long sniff over the pot. Hic, hic…

A dash of this and sprinkle of that… another slurp of brandy. Seemed like a small amount of mincemeat for so much effort. But left the house was smelling sublime!

It will sit for a few days to mature, in the meantime I have solved the problem of the Wreath on the front door. Well, not me personally, but Mr Dear Husband. He managed to put a screw/nail on the top of the door and hung the wreath with some fishing wire (now why didn’t I think of that!).

Thanks to the multitude of generous blog readers that offered to either have Magnetic Wreath Hangers sent to their homes in the US/Canada (still trying to work out how it would help to have it sent to Australia?? but thanks anyway) and then ship it on to Germany. Sweet, sweet… very sweet. I am touched… If you are passing, come and have a cup of tea with me… and a mince pie.

Magnetic Wreath Hanger

I need help…please… just a little… I have never asked you for anything!

I need one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/A-M-Leonard-Magnetic-Window-Hangers/dp/B0018D9DHO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=industrial&qid=1259693820&sr=8-3

My Front door wreath fell off… it was not pretty… I am not happy. 

And Amazon will not deliver this to Germany. 

Come on guys… help me!  Happy to pay ALL costs.

…I don’t do grovelling well… but I am…well.. grovelling.

This means the difference between a perfect Christmas and a So-so Christmas….

My future happiness lies in your hands…

Yes… I am deadly serious.

I mean it…

Stop laughing! Help me!

I want a Shopping Mall!

The title says everything. 

My shopping list, which I had actually remembered to take with me, was pretty long.  Mincemeat for Mince pies has a lot of ingredients. 

There are several supermarket choices in this town, all have their virtues, but none are ‘one stop shop’.  Not such a bad thing unless you are biking it, like I do.  This becomes complicated and visions of hands on shoulder as I slink through checkouts, start to plague my good, honest self.  I carry a back pack…  German supermarket operators are, on the whole, some of the most unhappy people on the planet.  The only thing that can lighten their mood is making me open my backpack and show them the items + receipt, yep, those bought from the rival supermarket.

After I had searched through 2 out of the 3 stores, I gave up.  It was all too hard.  Most of the items on my list remain unfilled.  Don’t get me started on Brown Sugar! In the end I was saved by the bottle of Ruby Port. I was so frustrated by the time I came home, I was tempted to knock the top off and give it a good guzzle. So no mince made yesterday.

But with December knocking on the door, it was time to get that wreath ready.  Can’t say that I was all that enthusiastic about it. Miss Eight helped by tying bows, and we tossed a few decorations on.  Biggest problem was how to hang it up on our new front door… she of glass and steel.  I picked up a stick-on-hook and had the idea that I could stick it on the inside of the door… of course I messed up the first attempt by ‘not putting the hook above the red line’.  Miss Eight saved the second attempt when I cleverly hung the hook upside down.  Thank goodness she can read.  At the point that I was turning red and blowing steam out of my ears, she started shouting at me, “Mummy! Don’t touch anything!! Don’t pull of the hook…you can change it!”  and she was right… so you could.

I wonder why Nigella Lawson never has days like this…

Do Nothing

At breakfast this morning, Mr Dear Husband asked what my plans were for the day. 

“Oh I have a whole day of washing ahead of me…” I whined and made that pained expression that all Keepers of the Haus make when facing a mountain of dirty linen. This attracted the attention of Miss Eight. 

“What is so hard about that?  All you have to do is put the clothes in the machine and turn it on!”

Hmmmm, now it is one thing to be a stay at home blogger mother, but a whole other ball game when the recipients of your labours take you for granted.

“Ok, so how about this.  For the next month, I will do nothing, and then we can see how hard it is.  For the next month I will do no washing, hanging up washing, taking down washing, sorting washing, ironing or putting away of clean clothes.  I will leave beds unmade, dirty clothes will no longer mysteriously be collected from off the bathroom floor.  No shopping, no cooking, no cleaning toilets.  For a month, the toilet roll will not be magically replaced.  Vacuuming, dusting, dishes will sit untended.  Windows will collect fingerprints from small children until we can no longer see through.”

“No problem.” she said.  “I will just go to McDonalds for lunch.”  There is a good chance she could pull it off too.  Underneath that sweet, blonde little head of hers, lies the cunning and intelligence to create havoc in small African countries. She has a rather cynical view of life for someone so young.  It wasn’t until my next comment that I managed to get her proper attention.

“Oh, and I will not be the morning alarm clock that gently wakes the child in time for school…”

“What!!!  Nooooo, you have to wake me up, I can’t be late for school!! Sorry mum, please, please don’t stop for a month.”

Nice to know where her priorities lie. 

On top of all the things I am NOT going to do today, I have plans to NOT do a little shopping.  I have decided NOT to make my own mince pies.  Germany has the greatest collection of Christmas biscuits know to mankind, but I have a hankering for Mince Pies.  The fruit mince has about 30 ingredients, and needs to sit for a few days to ripen. Now all I need to do is NOT find that bottle of brandy.

Pre Xmas Training

Right.  So off we went, armed with garden shears and biscuits. 

The Church hall was full.  Not sure why, but when we are told to “be there at 4pm”… we always seem to be the last ones to arrive. 

There were a couple of ‘cheap seats’ left, and those nasty branches that nobody else wanted.  But we were a force to be reckoned with. Never underestimate the power of an Aussie when it comes to finding her place at the table.

I had managed to drag Mr Dear Husband along.  Drag, being the operative word.  Each Saturday afternoon, there is football in Germany… no man worth his salt wants to be dragged off to make Advents Kranz. 

We worked like little demons and caught up with the others.  By 4:45pm the fun was over and men (those that had also been dragged along) were seen peeling off in their hurry to make it home before the 2nd half.

I liked it.  There was a nice Christmassy feel in the air.  The children were less interested, mainly because we, over achieving parents, took over the winding of the green around the ring.  All the Advents Kranzen were placed together in preparation for the big event. 

This morning they were collected and carried by each child to the church.  The priest blessed them. Now it has pride of place on our dining room table.

In the run up to the Big Event, I decided to start earning some brownie points with the Out-Laws.  As I have managed to wrangle away half of their traditional Christmas, replacing it with my own home made Australian-cum-International ideas, I thought it only right to invite them to Sunday lunch.

Roast leg of Lamb, mash potato, ratatouille, followed by baked apples…these were spiced up with some left over Crème de Marron from our summer holiday 2008.  All went well and I even managed to talk ‘others’ in to doing the dishes.

 

Ready for the oven….

The crafty Lulu

My little town here has really hit the ground running. Christmas cheer is pouring out of every window.

Last night was the opening of the local Weihnachtsmarkt or Christmas Market. It gets the whole show off to a bang. The smell of Gluhwein wafting through the little wooden houses, filled with sparkly goods.

It certainly transforms the whole (and I must admit rather dreary) local market square. Children were singing carols and I resisted the call of the chestnuts roasting over an open flame… This is, of course, NOTHING compared to the wonders that can be found in Bonn and Cologne. My first ever Christmas market visit was Cologne, Altstadt. It was snowing and cold. Like a picture book. I will never forget it.

This afternoon we are off to prepare the Advents Kranz. Sitting in the local church hall, drinking coffee and eating biscuits, in the company of all the other parents guiding their children toward their first Communion next year. I am not catholic, but the rest of the mob are. So I get to enjoy the bits that are fun. First Advent falls tomorrow, the first candle will be lit, followed by one each Sunday though to Christmas Eve. The wreath seen in the photo was prepared by my clever father in law. As we will end up with two, I am thinking of decorating and hanging this one on the front door.

I suspect my neighbours have been reading my blog. First thing this morning, they were up and about, going about the task of bringing Christmas cheer to our street. Here are a couple of features that were NOT there yesterday:

Not only were the lights not there yesterday… but the tree has suddenly appeared overnight! As for Santa… I had to do a little super spy work and nicked a photo from behind a tree because they were still in the process of putting up the lights.

Step by Step Christmas

“Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.” Kin Hubbard

Indulge me this. We have a whole lot of family coming over Christmas, and I couldn’t be happier. We have done Christmas with the Germans in Sydney, a lovely warm, King Prawn, boxes of white peaches Christmas. But never in reverse.

I have always loved Christmas in Germany. It is softer and kinder than in Australia. The early evenings lend themselves to candles, open fireplaces, and twinkling lights.

So one could be prone to thinking that I am over the moon about this upcoming celebration, and I am, but … and isn’t there always a but… I having been pushing pretty hard just to make my new house liveable in time for the festivities (lets not talk about the leak in the stairwell coming from the upstairs bathroom that I discovered today) and haven’t had much left over when it came to the logistics of the actual event. Until this week. This week I decided it is time to start ‘getting my Christmas house’ in order.

There are about a million things to think about. My lists are legendary in this family, but I think I might outdo all previous lists when I am finished with the “Christmas 2009” list.

So here is where YOU come in. In an effort to push myself harder and faster, I am going to try and post each day, something that I have done to prepare for the holidays. I warn you now, I can get a little obsessive about such things. There is a deep yearning for perfection when I entertain, and nothing short of a miracle will pull that off, this year.

Here is where we stand as of today; Friday, 27th November 2009. Tonight is the opening of the Christmas Market in my hometown. I will be there to cheer on the carol singers and taste the Gluhwein and hopefully bring back some photos for tomorrow’s post.

I put together this little collage so you could see where I stand at home. There is much to be done.

Top Left: My Xmas light, hanging in the kitchen window. It guides the children to school in the dark, early mornings.

Top Left: A Poinsettia. These just look all wrong in the heat of Australian Xmas, but here they are all right.

Middle Left: Yes, I ordered it on Amazon and it arrived yesterday. I am desperate and she makes it look so easy.

Middle Centre: Be impressed, carried this home on the back of my bike… it looks lovely on the terrace at night, and hides the fact that the garden is still a building site.

Middle Right: Pomegranate, just looks Christmassy sitting in that bowl. And tastes great with Lamb!

Bottom Left: Christmas Crackers. No Aussie family would be without a cracker and a silly hat on the big day. Cost an arm and a leg, but they are mine… all mine Hahahaha

Bottom Right: Not sure what sort of flowers these are, but they were a gift from a neighbour as a Housewarming present and I think they look very festive indeed.