Looking back on Christmas eve...

(Told ya I was behind on blog posts!)

We have a tradition for Christmas eve: we have cheese fondue and listen to Alan Maitland reading The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth.

They broadcast the reading on CBC radio's As It Happens every Christmas (unless it falls on a Saturday or Sunday, in which case they run it on the Friday.) I bought it on CD about a decade ago. I don't know what graphic design idiot thought red type on red was a good idea, but he clearly failed his college typography courses.

Gordon usually makes the fondue while I make a salad. It's pretty simple:

Cheese.

Booze (we use wine too!)

I found the fondue very alcoholic this year and couldn't understand why. Gordon was denying my reality! But the next day, said husband found a large chunk of Gruyère still in the fridge. Turns out the chef, aka Captain Oblivious, forgot to mix in half the cheese! I am a very lightweight drinker and wondered why I was getting a buzz from my meal.

  

Voilà! The cherry tomatoes and salad are missing from this photo. Sometimes we make more dippers but we were lazy this year. Bread, shrimp, and tomatoes, and...

...crushed potato chips. Someone suggested we try this! Roll your cheesy item in the chips. It wasn't bad! Calories don't count on Christmas eve anyway.

And I saved a shrimp for Julius, who is fixated on seafood...

If we are eating fish for supper, he'll sit and stare at us. I always save him a little piece.

 For dessert, we had leftover stained glass cake from Ronna's Chanukah supper!

It got a little mushed up on the drive home but was still tasty!

And here are some outtakes from Alex's photo session with Christmas hat...

"*&!@$#!!!*(+!!*?!"

"Hmm, the cord is kind of tasty!"

"Get it off! Get it off!" (Tristan the dog is laughing in the background.)

"Ah, sweet relief! Maybe I should punish you by peeing on something you love. Nah, it's Christmas!"

And this year, I insisted on buying a balsam fir, rather than cutting down some Charlie Brown tree from our woodlot. (Last year's tree set a new record for ugliness!)

We won't get any prizes for tasteful decoration, but the tree itself is lovely and smells good. That's Naomi zooming by on the lower right.

Me, I go for the 2011 manicured balsam fur over the 2010 Charlie Brown white spruce. Balsam smells great. White spruce smells like cat pee.

Tomorrow night is New Year's eve, when we have our traditional CHOCOLATE fondue. This year we're taking it on the road and going over to Ronna's. Stay tuned!