Be Excellent To Each Other

I cooked my first proper Christmas dinner from scratch.

Mini kov was impressed.

The in laws just started talking about mediums and having 'the gift'.

I've had to come into the kitchen.

Mine are both asleep, turn the heating up it works every time!

The in laws are still here. They came for lunch.. It is no longer lunch time.

Whoosh!

Mine were here for five hours today, which is at the outer edge of the acceptable limit. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like them well enough, but chatting to them isn't exactly playing Hearthstone now, is it?

They did come laden with truly excellent pork, stuffing, and apple sauce though. (We did the veggies and spuds and gravy and what have you.)

I then fussed around cleaning everything up in my usual anally retentive fashion, the goal being to have the house not looking like it was Christmas Day at all, and indeed entirely back to normal, by around 5pm at the latest.

Rib of beef with pavé potatoes, creamed parsnip, parsnip crisps, peas, pigs in blankets, Yorkshire pudding, and a port jus.

1) thats a pig in blanket singular, 2) Jesus that's a rare rib of beef, even if you sous vided it, and 3) that's a pig in blanket singular.

The trick is to plate up a modest portion, take a pretty picture, then plate up the actual food you're going to eat.

Beef was 54 deg C, so theoretically medium-rare (for a fairly French definition of doneness...) It was redder than I'd expected, admittedly! Meltingly tender though.

Take a pretty picture of me smashing food against my face!

God damn it Bik, I'm a cook, not a miracle worker!

Looks great Doc.

My quest for the worlds largest diving watch continues...

To be fair, that watch scales to you like a 38 mm Apple Watch scales to me.

Yup, it works well on my wrist. It is 17mm thick though!
So, what games did you get with your switch? I’m very tempted to buy one myself.

It came with Super Mario Odyssey, which is delightful. I bought Mario Kart, which I’ve only had a couple of games of versus on so far. My sister got me Zelda and I bought Mario+Rabbids, neither of which I’ve so much as started.

We're off to Helen's sister's for her side of the family lunch.
Their step mum can be a bit of a nightmare at the best of times but I'm sure she'll be turned up to 11 at Christmas.

She's one of those that just can't grasp the concept of other people liking anything different to her, and is a typical Daily Heil reading pensioner.

I think those peas look a bit dry.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Went really well here in our new place Mrs Z made dinner and it was superb. Kids loved their prezzies, especially Harrison who got an XBox One THAT HE DIDNT ASK FOR!

The angle only adds to his delight.

We’ve already had the lengthy explanation of how she said “is that the doorbell” when someone rang the doorbell at her house, followed by a rundown of her medical conditions and then a rant about how all children are incapable of saying please and thank you.

'Take back control' and eject her from the house.

“I’m sorry; but 52% of the people here think you should leave. That’s the will of the people.”

Now that’s the kind of referendum I could support.

She’s now gone full-on Grandpa Simpson.

Which was the style at the time

Old Lady Shouts at Cloud?

And we've escaped. That's that done for another year
Now to play Wolfenstein.

I love you. Despite you.

I got an Echo Dot for Christmas and have just set it up. I am now talking to an ice hockey puck and thinking this is perfectly normal.

Yeah, these kinds of things can be tricky.
(OK, I know this isn't a Dot, but the principle is the same)

Snö

Again?! Fuck sake.

Eat that, Japanese spirits!

Haha.

It's not a spirit, it's a fermented wine. Or something.

Technically I think it's beer, because it's fermented from a grain.

Vodka is beer now? Cool.

Vodka is distilled

I'm giving Christmas Season 2017 a score of 9/10

The build up was great as I managed to attend both a Nativity play and two Choir performances of my kids.
Dinner was delicious thanks to me pleading for a second meat (turkey is meh).
Kids and Mrs Z made up with their gifts and nothing needed changing!
First Christmas in our new house made it feel properly like home, was great having friends over for NYE too as we were originally just going to stay in on our own.
No one was really ill this year! Despite stomach bugs and colds doing the rounds. Just slight hangovers but they don't count.
I only deducted one point for Santa not getting me a PSVR.

blim.

She’s a beautiful human being. I adore her!

You didn’t make the distinction between being distilled and brewed, though, you just said ‘fermented’ and fermentation happens in both the brewing (beer) and distilling (spirits) processes.

I mean, I could have said fermented from a grain and not then distilled, but it's pretty irrelevant considering I was commenting on why it wasn't wine.

Have you never Beexed before, sir?

I gave it a 0/10

Frankly, it should consider itself lucky to have scored that high.

Come to my house this year.