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!!