So this time of the year makes me feel like the biggest kid in the world. I absolutely love christmas. I love the hustle and bustle, the way everyone seems to be happy and in good spirits and I especially love the way my 7 year old looks for evidence of Santa in every single moment. Insert my chance to put my acting, drama, bulls*t over exaggerating skills into use. A time of the year I can finally put that "A" I got in Year 12 Drama class into action. The truth is, I know that the 7 year old only has a couple of more years of believing in Santa because no doubt some A-HOLE kid at school is going to tell him other wise and the magic flame of all things reindeer, elf and santa will be extinguished. I'm also going to put it out there that I myself believed in Santa up until the age of 12! Seriously 12. I stopped believing in Santa when I got to high school. My Mum was that amazing with all her trickery and imagination, that she had me swearing on my life that there was a fat man who flies around the sky every Christmas Eve delivering presents. I even got a detention over my beliefs in Grade 7, on the bus home from school. I remember it very vividly. A girl named Skye Arnold was sitting in front of me and she was telling another student that Santa was not real and that it was the parents who put the presents under the Christmas tree. I tapped her on the shoulder and told that I actually had evidence that Santa was real. For as long as I could remember Santa had been leaving bits of his beard on the cup of milk that I had lovingly left for him to quench his thirst. Therefore bits of beard = real Santa. She just rolled her eyes and said "No, its your parents". I then launched into an argument based on HARD EVIDENCE. I have seen Santa footprints, heard sleigh bells, found hoof prints in the dirt, found bits of red felt near the christmas tree from where he had got his shirt left in a trap my brother and I had set up for him. Not to mention the letters we had received from him replying to specific details that my parents could not have known, from a letter I had written to him. There was quite a few people listening by now and I had about 80% of the crowd on my side. Then Skye looked me in the eye and told me and I quote "your parents are doing all of that, there is no such thing as Santa, stop being a baby". So I did what any self respecting Santa lover would do, I pushed her head really hard into the bus window and told her to shut her mouth. She cried, I got yelled at by the bus driver and told to come up to the front of the bus. In my 7 years of schooling I had never been in trouble with a teacher or an adult ever. I was a goodie, goodie and here I am getting yelled at by the bus driver and being made to come and sit next to him. I was absolutely mortified and terrified of how much trouble I was going to get into when I got home. When I got off the bus I ran straight to my mum and burst into tears crying about how horrible that little girl was and how scared I was that I was going to get in trouble by the Principal on Monday. During that whole episode Mum never told me that Santa was not real but she did get mad at me for pushing someones head into a window. When I arrived at school on Monday I had to miss out on play for the day. I was embarrassed sitting outside the office but I had my Tazos to pass the time. Funnily enough, that was the year I found out Santa was not real. This came from my own investigative skills, when I realised the wrapping paper was the same as the presents from mum and dad and the handwriting on the tags were the same as mum and dads. When I questioned Mum she tried her best to spin me some story but in my heart I knew that he wasn't real. I had a brother who was only 5 at the time, so for his sake and to be honest I am sure it was still for my own sake, I kept trying to believe and make things magical for my brother.
Now being a mother myself, I am so appreciative of all the bloody effort my mum went too, to make the day so magical. There was the wool for the beard but it wasn't your run of the mill cotton wool, it was special wool taken from the beard of a Santa Doll. There were boots dipped in mud and then printed outside on the concrete, there were fancy letters, bites only taken out of biscuits, horse shoe prints in the dirt and even bells rung xmas eve when we would be chilling watching tv, which would send us sprinting outside to investigate.
The truth is times are changing and kids seem to be growing up so much faster then we ever did. This can really only lead to the magic of Christmas being short lived. However with this change in times comes technology, something that we can use to our advantage. Its nothing to call Santa up on my mobile, thanks to a cool app or to get a personalised message from Santa from the North Pole.
The other night by chance there was a little beetle scurrying around the Christmas Tree. The 7 year old discovered it and told me that there was a beetle in the house. I told him it was a Christmas Beetle. He had never heard of such a beetle and was pretty excited that an actual CHRISTMAS beetle was in our house and it wasn't just a dirty old black beetle who had flown through the loovers. I told him that Christmas beetles are sent to spy on families, to make sure that everyone is being good and that they fly back to Santa to let him know. Well that Beetle was given VIP treatment. It was given a biscuit which apparently it loved (even thought to me it was just using it as a climbing tool), then the 7 year old swore that when he asked the beetle if he had been good this year, it nodded its head to say Yes. The next day he was telling the kid next door about the beetle visiting us, which left the kid next door absolutely devastated that he had not had a Christmas Beetle in his house yet.
I feel my best work so far this year, has come from the 7 year old asking how there could be multiple Santa's at different shopping centres. Simple really… I went on to tell him how that the real Santa is in the shop that is the most magical (that was of course the one we got the photos at, and the one he spoke to) and the other Santa is actually an Elf. I explained to him that Santa can only be in the one place at the one time and there are millions of shops that have Santas in them but they are not the real Santas. What happens is, an Elf is given a magical pill to take and it transforms him into Santa. When he touches you in the photo, he can tell if you are naughty or nice and this information is sent straight through to the real Santa. Once he returns to the North Pole he turns back to an Elf and keeps working. The 7 year old was like "Of course, I knew it!" The funniest thing was he was explaining this story to a friend and I was waiting for his friend to go "WTF are you on??" But his friend was like "yeh, I knew that ages ago"..
When I was telling my husband how I had successfully managed to solve the multiple Santa at the Shop problem, he looked at me and went.. "So you just told your son that when an Elf pops a pill he turns into Santa". "So basically your promoting that taking pills are ok…" "Are you sure that these Elves aren't on some type of LSD trip thinking they are Santa? " "Are you sure that the 7 year old isn't going to pop pills one day hoping to turn into Santa himself??"
BAH HUMBUG… (note to self, don't ever turn the Elves into pill popping junkies tripping out again)
From our deck we have a view of all the city lights and you can also see lights on the mountain in the distance. I have convinced the 7 year old that those lights in a row on the mountain are sleigh lights and the reindeers are training for the big night. Yesterday when we were at the shops he asked me if he could get some Powerade to leave out on the deck for the reindeers to have when they finish training (sugar free of course).
The two year old on the other hand is absolutely petrified of Santa. She does however love Christmas lights, opening presents and the song Jingle Bells, which she will sing at all times (well her version of it anyway) and scream out "HEY" more often then the lyrics call for really loudly in your ear.
I think that what I am most excited about this year, is the kids present. About 5 months ago our beloved dog passed away from old age. Abby was 15 human years, which apparently is 73 in dog years. We have wanted to get another family member for the last couple of months but struggled finding the perfect fit for our family, that was until last week. The breeder was nice enough to hold her until Christmas morning for us and will drop her off at 6:30am Christmas morning. How the hell am I going to keep the 7 year old asleep till then?? (Elf pill anyone?? I KID I KID!!!) So we have written a letter from Santa that will instruct the kids to go on a little treasure hunt to find her. I have bought a gorgeous straw basket and decorated it with christmas decorations. I even went as cray cray to get a a miniature santa puppy hat for her to be wearing with a teeny little dog scarf (oh my ovaries). I am so so excited to see how this all pans out. No doubt it will do a massive turd in the basket and somehow roll in it, so it's scarf will be covered in sh*t and it will eat its hat… but in my mind it will be perfect...
I have been doing quite a bit of cooking for Christmas, but our oven is the biggest Son of a b out there. You basically can not leave the kitchen when baking, otherwise you will come back to burnt biscuits. You always have to turn the tray mid cook because the ones at the back cook faster than the ones at the front and just because the recipe asks for a temp doesn't mean my oven will agree. For awhile there I thought it was just my shitty ability to cook, but I had a friend over who does Thermomix demos ( so she is always using other peoples ovens) and she burnt the focacia bread not once but twice. She declared it to be the shittiest oven she has ever used. I asked if she could put that in writing so I could frame it and put it above the oven, so when I burn food, I can just point to the frame and say "its not my fault, its officially the shittiest oven ever used".
This was the recipe I made yesterday
CHOC CHIA PEANUT BUTTER BISCUITS
1. Place chocolate pieces into TM bowl and roughly chop 2 -3 times, turbo speed
2. Set aside 50 g of chopped chocolate
3. Add the diced butter to the chocolate left in the bowl and melt 3 mins, 60 C sp 4.
4. Add all other ingredients except the 50 g of chocolate and the 2 tablesp peanuts
5. Mix 20 sec, sp 5.
6. Roll 2 teasp of the dough into a ball and place onto biscuits trays lined with baking paper. Leave at least 3 cm between each.
7. Combine remaining chocolate with the peanuts.
8. Make a hollow in the top of each cookie with a spoon or your thumb and press chocolate and nut mixture gently into the dough.
9. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 180 C.
10. Cool on trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
They were delicious. Unfortunately I burnt the ass out of the first batch but the second were so good. These obviously have a higher amount of sugar in them due to the dark chocolate. However spread out over 30 biscuits it is only about 1 tsp of sugar per 5 biscuits. So if you are only eating one biscuit a day then it is minuscule.
Tonight I am cooking dinner for my parents and my mother in law. My motivation is sitting somewhere between fish and chips and ordering a pizza and putting it in the oven and pretending I made it….
Happy Monday everyone!!
Now being a mother myself, I am so appreciative of all the bloody effort my mum went too, to make the day so magical. There was the wool for the beard but it wasn't your run of the mill cotton wool, it was special wool taken from the beard of a Santa Doll. There were boots dipped in mud and then printed outside on the concrete, there were fancy letters, bites only taken out of biscuits, horse shoe prints in the dirt and even bells rung xmas eve when we would be chilling watching tv, which would send us sprinting outside to investigate.
The truth is times are changing and kids seem to be growing up so much faster then we ever did. This can really only lead to the magic of Christmas being short lived. However with this change in times comes technology, something that we can use to our advantage. Its nothing to call Santa up on my mobile, thanks to a cool app or to get a personalised message from Santa from the North Pole.
The other night by chance there was a little beetle scurrying around the Christmas Tree. The 7 year old discovered it and told me that there was a beetle in the house. I told him it was a Christmas Beetle. He had never heard of such a beetle and was pretty excited that an actual CHRISTMAS beetle was in our house and it wasn't just a dirty old black beetle who had flown through the loovers. I told him that Christmas beetles are sent to spy on families, to make sure that everyone is being good and that they fly back to Santa to let him know. Well that Beetle was given VIP treatment. It was given a biscuit which apparently it loved (even thought to me it was just using it as a climbing tool), then the 7 year old swore that when he asked the beetle if he had been good this year, it nodded its head to say Yes. The next day he was telling the kid next door about the beetle visiting us, which left the kid next door absolutely devastated that he had not had a Christmas Beetle in his house yet.
I feel my best work so far this year, has come from the 7 year old asking how there could be multiple Santa's at different shopping centres. Simple really… I went on to tell him how that the real Santa is in the shop that is the most magical (that was of course the one we got the photos at, and the one he spoke to) and the other Santa is actually an Elf. I explained to him that Santa can only be in the one place at the one time and there are millions of shops that have Santas in them but they are not the real Santas. What happens is, an Elf is given a magical pill to take and it transforms him into Santa. When he touches you in the photo, he can tell if you are naughty or nice and this information is sent straight through to the real Santa. Once he returns to the North Pole he turns back to an Elf and keeps working. The 7 year old was like "Of course, I knew it!" The funniest thing was he was explaining this story to a friend and I was waiting for his friend to go "WTF are you on??" But his friend was like "yeh, I knew that ages ago"..
When I was telling my husband how I had successfully managed to solve the multiple Santa at the Shop problem, he looked at me and went.. "So you just told your son that when an Elf pops a pill he turns into Santa". "So basically your promoting that taking pills are ok…" "Are you sure that these Elves aren't on some type of LSD trip thinking they are Santa? " "Are you sure that the 7 year old isn't going to pop pills one day hoping to turn into Santa himself??"
BAH HUMBUG… (note to self, don't ever turn the Elves into pill popping junkies tripping out again)
From our deck we have a view of all the city lights and you can also see lights on the mountain in the distance. I have convinced the 7 year old that those lights in a row on the mountain are sleigh lights and the reindeers are training for the big night. Yesterday when we were at the shops he asked me if he could get some Powerade to leave out on the deck for the reindeers to have when they finish training (sugar free of course).
The two year old on the other hand is absolutely petrified of Santa. She does however love Christmas lights, opening presents and the song Jingle Bells, which she will sing at all times (well her version of it anyway) and scream out "HEY" more often then the lyrics call for really loudly in your ear.
I think that what I am most excited about this year, is the kids present. About 5 months ago our beloved dog passed away from old age. Abby was 15 human years, which apparently is 73 in dog years. We have wanted to get another family member for the last couple of months but struggled finding the perfect fit for our family, that was until last week. The breeder was nice enough to hold her until Christmas morning for us and will drop her off at 6:30am Christmas morning. How the hell am I going to keep the 7 year old asleep till then?? (Elf pill anyone?? I KID I KID!!!) So we have written a letter from Santa that will instruct the kids to go on a little treasure hunt to find her. I have bought a gorgeous straw basket and decorated it with christmas decorations. I even went as cray cray to get a a miniature santa puppy hat for her to be wearing with a teeny little dog scarf (oh my ovaries). I am so so excited to see how this all pans out. No doubt it will do a massive turd in the basket and somehow roll in it, so it's scarf will be covered in sh*t and it will eat its hat… but in my mind it will be perfect...
I have been doing quite a bit of cooking for Christmas, but our oven is the biggest Son of a b out there. You basically can not leave the kitchen when baking, otherwise you will come back to burnt biscuits. You always have to turn the tray mid cook because the ones at the back cook faster than the ones at the front and just because the recipe asks for a temp doesn't mean my oven will agree. For awhile there I thought it was just my shitty ability to cook, but I had a friend over who does Thermomix demos ( so she is always using other peoples ovens) and she burnt the focacia bread not once but twice. She declared it to be the shittiest oven she has ever used. I asked if she could put that in writing so I could frame it and put it above the oven, so when I burn food, I can just point to the frame and say "its not my fault, its officially the shittiest oven ever used".
This was the recipe I made yesterday
CHOC CHIA PEANUT BUTTER BISCUITS
- 100 gram unsalted butter, diced
- 200 gram dark chocolate
- 100 gram Mayvers Orignal Super Spread (4 nuts, chia and seasmae)
- 200gram dextrose
- 1 egg
- 185 gram plain flour
- 1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons peanuts, unsalted, roasted (optional)
1. Place chocolate pieces into TM bowl and roughly chop 2 -3 times, turbo speed
2. Set aside 50 g of chopped chocolate
3. Add the diced butter to the chocolate left in the bowl and melt 3 mins, 60 C sp 4.
4. Add all other ingredients except the 50 g of chocolate and the 2 tablesp peanuts
5. Mix 20 sec, sp 5.
6. Roll 2 teasp of the dough into a ball and place onto biscuits trays lined with baking paper. Leave at least 3 cm between each.
7. Combine remaining chocolate with the peanuts.
8. Make a hollow in the top of each cookie with a spoon or your thumb and press chocolate and nut mixture gently into the dough.
9. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 180 C.
10. Cool on trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
They were delicious. Unfortunately I burnt the ass out of the first batch but the second were so good. These obviously have a higher amount of sugar in them due to the dark chocolate. However spread out over 30 biscuits it is only about 1 tsp of sugar per 5 biscuits. So if you are only eating one biscuit a day then it is minuscule.
Tonight I am cooking dinner for my parents and my mother in law. My motivation is sitting somewhere between fish and chips and ordering a pizza and putting it in the oven and pretending I made it….
Happy Monday everyone!!
Butter Biscuits!! Seriously good!
Gingerbread cookies. Recipe in last blog entry.
Choc Mousse. Egg Cups are the perfect size servings for little people. Recipe in last blog entry.
This is the spread I used in the Choc Chia Peanut Butter Biscuits.
Excuse the blob of supposed Christmas shapes but these biscuits are bloody good. Choc Chia Peanut Butter Biscuits
Must try these biscuits. At least the star ones didnt look as dodgy.
My first batch that I burnt the ass out of… JOYFUL TIMES FOR ALL
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