Christmas Day at our House

 We'll see how this goes. Internet has been FUBAR for the past few days. Likely weather related as we are wireless and reception is not always the best. Lots of snow this past few days and much more last night. Now that it is winter, Lucky has moved into the back porch which makes Tanya happy as it is easier to spoil him. He loves the deep snow and when Tanya shoveled the walks this morning and threw snow on him he was very happy. He took his ball outside and played hide and seek with it in the snow and remembered to take it back inside. Amazing as he has a 5 second attention span.

Winter Wonderland

Lucky debating whether to go out or not

My printer packed it in or I should say, I gave up on it. Two years without printing seized up the pores in the print head and there was no way to clean it completely. Bought a Canon PIXMA G4311. With replaceable print heads and refillable ink tanks. Took me a while to set it up as wireless. Not simple. Setting it up for Tanya in Russian will be another challenge. Bad enough that my dog is smarter than me but now the printer is too. 

Talker to my brother on the farm Christmas Eve. Rather listened. He has no one to talk to other than himself and his 6 cats and Lassie, his Collie. He has no TV until he hooks up his satellite dish as he was analogue. But he visits a great deal. He has a friend about two hours away, another loner like himself. His friend has two TVs, one set on YouTube and one on Fox. He records lots of stuff for my brother to watch on a playback projector. Nuff said. 

Dec 23rd was our 15th anniversary, so we had the immediate family over for supper last night Dec 25th. Celebrate "Catholic" Christmas and our anniversary at the same time. Tanya cooked all week and I helped where I could or was allowed. We had enough food for an army and only six adults. Masha did not come home from Kyiv, she will be home for New Years. Dasha eats like a bird, a very small bird, so she hardly counts.

Not a traditional Christmas meal by Canadian standards. We roasted two turkey thighs which we can buy cheap and that was as close as it got. Well, ok, mashed potatoes. I made the mushroom and French onion soup mix gravy.  Tanya made a crab salad which she converted into appetizers by wrapping it in thin slices of cucumber held together with a toothpick.  Red caviar on crackers. There was smoked salted Norwegian salmon, a full side fillet. Don't ask. 

Cold sliced roast pork loin. Cabbage rolls, голубцы, golubtsy in Russian and голубці, holubtsi in Ukrainian. I learned that one cabbage roll is golubets in Russian. Who knew, like who eats one cabbage roll. And kholodets, like head cheese, made from an old hen and four pigs knuckles boiled to death and let set in the cold. Eaten with hot mustard. I love it. We made beef liver pate cutlets. Ground beef liver and onions, add eggs and flour and fry into thin patties. Eat cold or hot with condiment of your choice. I love it. 

When Tanya and Masha were in Spain in mid December, she brought back Spanish ham, Spanish sausage, Spanish 'cheddar', and Spanish 'parmesan'.  If you have never eaten Spanish ham, you are in for a treat of a lifetime. It is dry cured and you slice it THIN. The really good stuff was 95 Euros per kg. That is not what Tanya bought but heavenly none-the-less. The sausage was also dry cured. All four items were to die for. 

The green salad was just a token gesture

Desert was two cakes, one traditional and one chocolate that Tanya made by combining two recipes. She will do that one again, for sure. We made chocolate muskrat houses cookies aka haystacks, (my aka 'feedlot specials'). They are the best ever. 

Tanya's chocolate cake

Dinner is eaten over a long period of time. Once everyone has had a good feed, it is time to visit over the dirty plates and eat more from time to time, eventually getting around to desert. Andrey had to work that night so he ate quickly, went into the bedroom and slept for two hours. I cleaned up what I could and went to my computer. Dasha played with the cats. They love her which is good as they usually don't like visitors. The four women talked. And drank. A 0.7 litre bottle of white wine split two ways. A 0.5 litre bottle of Finlandia vodka split mostly two ways as Andrey and I drank very little (for once). 

Baba Natasha did the dishes for which I was grateful and we packed up enough food for the three families, Natasha, Lina, and Andrey and Tanya, for at least two or three more meals. And we'll be eating well this week too. For breakfast I had crab salad, kholodets and chocolate cake.

As Tanya said, once a year, we can and need to do this. 

I hope all my readers had a good Christmas or a quite day at home with lots of naps or both. I wish you all a happy and safe new year as we try to move on from 2020 and 2021.