We had a cold smorgasbord, with ham & chicken salad & potato salad, with local avocado, tomatos, watermelan, lettice, & heaps of prawns, from the prawn farm, down the road. Nothing like prawns that have never seen a freezer.

Followed by pavlova, but a strange one with no fruit, but a peanut flavour, with choclate, cream, & a few strawberies, concocted by my daughter. No one could stop eating it.

Cake, & cider was, as usual, a bit too much, requiring a lazy afternoon by the pool.

What more could you ask.

Dear Belly,

As I've mentioned in my earlier posts - we start
our Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve -
with my having cooked for several days before
hand. The entire family - gathered at our place.
Including both mothers - one in her nineties,
the other in her eighties.

The traditional dishes were served for
the Christmas Eve meal, beginning with the
recitation of Grace and the breaking of a special
unleavened wafer, called "Plotkele." This wafer, blesed
by the Lithuanian Parish priest, is shared by all at the
table, signifying a spirit of unity. It's a lovely
tradition - and is shared by Lithianian families on
Christmas Eve - all over the world.

The dishes we had (served cold) were seafood
- and ours consisted of platters
of cooked King prawns, smoked trout, salmon, baked stuffed fish, marinated herring, Russian salad, mushroom dumplings,
Christmas Biscuits with Poppy Seed milk, Christmas Bread,
Fruit Compote, Rye Bread and so on. Of course there's wine,
beer, fruit juices, iced water, dessert wines, port, tea,
coffee, Christmas Fruit Bombe, and a cheese platter.

Christmas Day Lunch - again at our place -
was the traditional hot Christmas Lunch consisting
of roast turkey, lemon and parsley stuffing, glazed ham
with Cumberland Sauce, Christmas vegies of baby beans with
almonds, brussel sprouts with chestnuts, candied yams, roast
potatoes, a garden salad, a Christmas log for dessert and a
traditional Christmas Cake. Again, wine, beer,
iced water, fruit juices, and fortified wines & port to drink.

It was a lovely family time - and everyone, especially the
elderly mums - enjoyed themselves.
I'll keep on doing this for as long as I'm able as I
feel that bringing the family together in such a
positive way is important. Besides, it's only for such
a short time and it would be a pity to break with traiditon.

Mind you I slept like a log on Boxing Day!

Mmmm .. all sounds very yummy to me ..

We eat Indo 90% of the time but, aah, variety is the spice of life methinks so .. we decided to have a very much Aussie style menu .. all the Holy Days here have a special food to additionally distinguish them so here again ..

We had the Bali Hindus over for Breaky .. crispy back bacon, german bangers, scrambled eggs with our own organic dill mmmm, toast and butter, local fruit salad, apricot yoghurt, organic bali kopi and juices.

..

We slothed mostly mid day ..

..

For dinner, we put on a party for the whole mob - Bali Hindus, Jawa Muslims, Ferral Aussies, Mad Morrocans and us.

Fresh garden salad with thousand island, potato salad with egg and more dill, juices and icees from the left over fruit salad,

AND

the barbi *Belly* .. mmm .. some serious Jappo Santori beef steaks
(extra dry for those of the Islamis persuasion, extra bloody for me)

and we had some left over curry beef madras which we shishkebabbed with red "bombay" onion, tomato and capsicum on the barbi
(which went down a treat) and more german snags, a crate of the amber fluid and a good time was had by all.

Oh, and n.american style barbi sauce and I did a hot sour fish sauce Thai sambal which always goes down a treat with all the Indos for those who like a bit of "woop, woop" with their meat.

Foxy CJM and hasbeen had as close to my dream as anyone could,no rain here examinator, but that night till now you bet.
I sat 37 down at mums last Christmas ten number 20 chooks in two days.
Kids seem to be content with far less than our traditions say.
I planned for sea food and salads cold meats all year, but trudged home weeks ago, under pressure to be traditional.
All the trimmings and enough left in freezer to do it again when other relos arrive after new year.
Not tight, would gladly spend twice that, for a mud crab each, prawns ousters and a few cold beers, well got the beer Bundy and wine at least.

Great idea OLOer *
It's been decided, next Christmas day we all go to Foxy's for lunch....Her's sounds the best! I'm sure she wouldn't notice a few extra freeloaders?

If GY gives us the address, he can come too.

P.S. Belly, I told you it was a good idea to post this topic, to find out who put would be the best host for next years first OLOer Christmas lunch.

:-) he he he he (evil laugh)

Not funny Foxy ? :-( (Ok the naughty corner, hand on head too?)

Banjo: << Even when the polys do their damnest to ruin this country, we still do pretty good. Tough life! >>

Quite so. It makes me wonder why you whinge so much about people who are doing it much, much tougher than you ever have.