A lot has happened already in my Christmas break, so I thought it would be fun to write a diary-style column for this Christmas edition.
Tuesday, Dec. 24th 2019
This year my boyfriend and I decided to invite our families to celebrate Christmas at our place instead of theirs. Usually we celebrate at our older sibling’s place, because we’re both the youngest, or in Dutch “de nakomertjes”. But this time, Christmas was celebrated in our home and I really felt proud of myself! On Christmas Eve Deon’s family came over for our ‘Christmas Buffet’. We chose for a buffet simply because his family is too big for our table. #haha
As the hosts, we prepared three dishes: one appetizer, one main dish, and dessert. All drinks were on us too, but there was a “catch”. I’m someone who’s trying to UP their SUSTAINABILITY GAME, so we didn’t have any softdrinks; we have SODASTREAM! (–> Check out the commercial!). No more plastic bottles, yeaaaaah!
And as usual, there was more than enough food for everyone. Seafood, meats, veggies, beer, wine, and of course our own sparkling drinks. We ate, talked, and laughed all night with a full plate of deliciousness and love. His family was quite impressed by our decorations and preparations of the house. Like I said, I felt very proud of myself. First day of Christmas was a success!
Wednesday, Dec. 25th 2019
On Christmas Day itself Deon and I celebrated on our own; just the two of us in our pajamas on the couch eating carpaccio, steak, and the same dessert from last night, while watching The Witcher: all episodes (each 1 hour long), and ending the night with the newest Netflix 2-hour-packed-action-movie 6 Underground.
For dessert, Deon tried a new recipe. Restaurant ’t Zusje serves their own homemade dessert called “mislukte appelcake” or translated “failed apple cake”. He loved it so much that he decided to try it out himself and serve it as dessert on Christmas. We couldn’t find their recipe online, but we did find a blog of another fan who recreated the recipe! Check it out on “Mamma’tje van Alles“! Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of our results – maybe tomorrow.
Thursday, Dec. 26th 2019
Today it was my family’s turn to celebrate Christmas at our place. My family is somewhat smaller, so they all fit at the table. While Deon was preparing and cooking all the dishes, I cleaned and tidied the house; and my most favorite, decorated the table as fancy as possible. #cuzIlikeitlikethat
The dishes we prepared were “patatje stoof” (translated: beef stew with fries), beef wellington (recipe by Gordon Ramsay of course), a whole roasted chicken (recipe by, again, Gordon Ramsay), and “mislukte appelcake”. If you’ve also read my Christmas column last year, I think it’s pretty obvious that my bf is the biggest fan of Gordon Ramsay.
We had a great dinner, even though the kids didn’t like any of it. But kids will be kids; it was only when I got older that I grew this curiosity of trying out new things – they’ll get there eventually.
After opening some presents with them and cleaning up, it was time for me to get ready, because I was going to the (translated) Christmas Festival at TivoliVredenburg with a few friends. We arrived around 23:00 and danced on 90’s and 00’s tunes, but also our beloved Caribbean-style music was playing in one of the halls. Everyone was dressed really nice and a lot of people had Christmas costumes on!
Around 01:00 we decided to go home and, lucky me, one of my friends came by car, so she dropped us all off at home! I took off my make-up, brushed my teeth, took a hot shower, and went to bed around 03:00.
Friday, Dec. 27th 2019
I woke up around 12:00; I slept great! Watched a few Family Guy episodes while eating leftovers from all our Christmas dinners. Scrolled a lot of social media and now I’m writing this column. Quiet and lazy. I don’t think I need dinner tonight. But there’s always room for desert!
