The Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles Readalong 2024 Part 3

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Welcome to thread three.

The Christmas Chronicles is the story of Nigel Slater’s love for winter. Taking you from 1 November all the way to early February, The Christmas Chronicles covers everything from Bonfire Night, Christmas and New Year to Epiphany. Throughout the season, Nigel offers over 100 recipes to see you through the build-up, the celebrations and the aftermath.

Anyone who hasn't yet joined in, there's still a big chunk of the book to go as you can see from the description above. It's in diary form with an entry most days and is easy to dip in and out of.

Anyway, welcome friends new and old. Pull a cosy chair closer the the fire, light a candle, pour a glass of something warming and settle in.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Mr Darcy loves Christmas. Here he is sitting on a calendar I've just unwrapped and now he has his head in a gift bag.

🎄🎄Happy Christmas everyone, hope you each have a wonderful day!!🎄🎄

Thank you for keeping the thread going @RainbowZebraWarrior, it's been so lovely.

Well wishes to all and may 2025 be hopeful and happy. ✨✨✨✨✨✨

Turkey is in the oven. I read today's entry with a cup of coffee before everyone else was up. They're up now and squabbling over toast 🙄. Is it too early to open the champagne?
Wishing you all a wonderful, peaceful Christmas.
P.S for the first time ever I've won Whamageddon! ! Got all the way to xmas day without hearing Last Christmas 😃

Thank you so much for this. What a festive treat! ❤️

I didn't make it back last night but this evening after we've been to ILs I might come back for some hygge.

Time for coffee and croissants! ☕ 🥐

Happy Christmas to everyone and thank you to @nettie434 for recommending the Nigel Slater programme with Kirsty Young on Radio 4. I've just listened to it and it's a lovely way to start Christmas morning 🎄❄️

Thanks also everyone who posted all your lovely comments and beautiful photos and snippets, it's been lovely to have a peek into your lives!

@RainbowZebraWarrior Merry Christmas, to you and all, and huge thanks to you for running this thread and to everyone for making it so special.
I may need to borrow Mr Darcy's gift bag for my head too. Well and truly unwell and having got up early am lying down listening to carols from Kings (thanks to technology and DC) and being as chilled as I can about it all. I will eventually catch up all the bits I've missed.
Wherever@Midlifeshenanigans is ( think may have name changed) thank you so much for making it possible for me to join in properly here. Possibly a much bigger gift than you realize, the book is very much enjoyed and treasured.
Usually around this period I feel awkward and forrin and not 'proper' for having revived Christmas traditions that ended abruptly on our arrival here, but this year I have felt I belong properly somewhere other than only when with those from my background, and really enjoy hearing about everyone else's traditions both cultural and individual as well as what Nigel's written about.

Happy Christmas everyone and may your days be full of Nigel!

@EphemeraleEudemonia my mum is home and doing well, thank you for asking.

@ChessieFL Good to hear.

This ornament's for all those under the weather in whatever way and a reminder to try not tp exhaust ourselves, and a bit of Christmas brunch - toasted mixed smoked cheeses with pomegranate seeds and coriander to prop up exhausted cooks with.

Thanks again for the Radio 4 heads up. I've been listening all morning.

There has just been a reading from the book The dead of winter, (I think this book has been mentioned on here before?) which fitted in wonderfully with what @EphemeraleEudemonia has been saying about wintertime and Christmas traditions (beautiful post btw) There was a part all about the village of Maesteg in South Wales and the folklore / customs there. I was chuffed to bit to hear that, as that's the village my family are from.

Nadolig Llawen!

@EphemeraleEudemonia my copy of CC was gifted by a MN-er a good few years ago now! I always appreciate the kindness of the sender when it comes out 😊

@RainbowZebraWarrior dd2 bought me that book for Christmas (ok, with my money, but she dragged her dad into Waterstones for it!). It's smaller than I envisioned but I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into that & Merry Midwinter!

I had a feeling it was you who had mentioned that book @lucysmam I've just bought it myself now (it's half price atm on Amazon if anyone else is after it) I've also been dipping in and out of Merry Midwinter this December.

@EphemeraleEudemonia thanks for the check in. I have been lurking but not posting as we had an unexpected family bereavement a few weeks ago and Christmas has rather gone by the wayside. I’m glad you you enjoyed the book and I have really loved reading all your posts

I'm so sorry Midlifeshenanigans. I did wonder if something had happened but hoped you had just name changed. I do hope the new year is kinder.

So sorry to hear of your bereavement @Midlifeshenanigans

I have lit a candle in memory of all loved ones lost ❤️

👏very well done @dazzlingdeborahrose . I was only saying to DD the other day that there is no way over the last few years that anyone could ever not hear Wham's Last Christmas during the month of December - it's seems to be everywhere all the time!

Well checking in very late in the day to wish all my Nigel friends a very happy Christmas.
It's been a tricky one here, FIL having a
Bit of a mental
Health crisis, which has triggered DH re all his child hood Christmas's. Dd2 didnt want to go to her dads for the evening, and dd2 decided she was going to
Her boyfriends so also didn't go to dads. Not the best...but we endure.
I've loved this thread and I Thankyou @RainbowZebraWarrior and everyone else for providing a much needed corner of calm and general loveliness x

Yes thank you for doing this thread. I dipped in and out and am new to it, but it was a haven of civility and peace, lovely ideas and stories. Thank you all ❤️

@RainbowZebraWarrior so nice to hear about your trip and that your Nisse arrived home safely. I love Normal! We have them here too and my daughter has those little boxes for her snacks at barnehage on the run up to Christmas. I get all my skincare and hair stuff from Normal as I love how they have so much choice. Put a pipette on a glass bottle and I'll buy it!

We had a quiet and family orientated few days, which was lovely. We have an 'almost phone ban' over 24th and 25th. We've found over the years living away, that the years we don't have visitors over, we can spend so much time speaking and messaging on the phone, that we end up missing the point of why we stay home and don't have visitors. So messages and calls in the morning, then no phones.

We spent the 24th shovelling snow, playing board games and baking. We're going to go to the tiny cabin on Friday to spend new year there, so we went up on Tuesday morning, turned the heating on and shovelled the snow so we can get in the door. The kids love to pile it all up. Last Easter we made a giant snow castle. I took a picture of the snow shovel as I'm still amazed by the size we need. I push it with both hands and my 5 year old can easily sit on it, it's so big! 2024's most boring photograph!

Yesterday we had our julebord. I was really pleased with how it came out. Usually when we have the traditional turkey, I spend the morning in and out of the kitchen. Yesterday it was more of an intensive hour and a half. Then done! I quite liked it that way, especially as our kitchen is open plan so I'm not really missing the kids playing etc.

We had roast beef, Tjocka julrevben which are honey and ginger glazed ribs, Gravlaks, sennap sild (mustard herring), red cabbage, elg kjøttboller (moose meatballs), reindeer julepølse, prinskorv, Sprouts etc. I made stuffing with reindeer mincemeat and apricots, figs etc. And in the late summer we picked blueberries and red currents from around the cabin. I made this into a jelly/sauce with glögg and we had that yesterday too!

Today we will have a jogging bottoms and hoody day! No cooking, just a cold leftovers day.

I hope that everyone finds a bit of peace today and a little koselig corner, even if only for 10 minutes.

26 December - Boxing Day

A pig in a blanket, a crisp salad

Boxing Day could, just could, be the very best day of the year. I could elaborate, but what is the point when all is said and done in one, vast, magnificent, glorious sandwich. There is, I venture to suggest, no finer sandwich than the one built from the contents of the fridge on the day after Christmas. Thin folds of roast turkey, beef or goose, generously salted, cold stuffing, cold sausage, cranberry or apple sauce. A few sharp, possibly fiery Pickles. You will need some rather good bread of course, a dollop of mayonnaise, some leaves of sprightly lettuce or a tangle of watercress. You will almost certainly want to crisp a handful of rashers of smoked streaky bacon, too.

Leftovers on my mind as I wonder about breakfast! I have some almond croissants in the freezer. Lunch today is roast squash soup but with a cheese plate and probably some leftover roasties and condiments. I always do an extra load of roasties as we love them and it’s great to pick at them the next day!

We had a truly lovely day yesterday. I hope you all have a lovely day today, doing things the way that makes you happy.

@piscofrisco that sounds very difficult. Sending hugs and hoping that today is calmer for you. Hugs all round for anyone having difficult times or poorly.

Yesterday was mostly wonderful for us. Just me and DD doing our own thing. Tears of happiness in the morning at the wonderfully thoughtful gifts she had bought me. So unbelievably special. I was spoiled in a way that nobody else has ever done. I feel so lucky to be appreciated and have such unconditional love from her.

Went to my parents at about 2pm for an hour and a half. They weren't speaking, and Dad had gone off out for the day (he hates Christmas and usually goes off with the dog to the beach etc) Mum said they had fallen out on Christmas Eve about him not wanting turkey. In the end. He came home just as we were leaving at 3.30 and had the turkey. All it did was just remind me that when I was a kid, 9 out of 10 times they weren't speaking over Christmas. It's contrary, childish, selfish and it taught me everything about how not to behave and how not to parent. Life's too bloody short for goodness sake!

I've ordered candles in the sale this morning to put away for next Christmas from Isle of Skye company. Winter Warmer and Frankincense and Mhyrr. I also have this beauty from DD which I may crack open today.

I made the hasselback parsnips along side normal parsnips in the end. They were both good. DD has definitely decided that vegetarianism is for her, so she had carrots, yorkshires and roasties. (We also make extra ones as it's our favourite to snack on @Bimblesalong

@PricklyBob I thought of you this morning as I remembered about your Boxing Day curry. Hope all is well with you.

Love your photos and descriptions @IngenTing

Lovely to hear about people's nice days and juleboard and snow shovel!
Sorry to those who had family tensions or crises to deal with.

I eventually won the me vs terrible ikea oven fight although I wished I'd roasted the parsnips Christmas Eve.

I love Boxing Day. Loads of leftovers, all gifts are given, the decorations are still up and looking nice and my brain can finally slooooow down.

DH gave me this book which is bang on trend for the thread.

Gosh, DD who's 26 just came downstairs looking for bags to take her old clothes out of her home wardrobe so that she can sort them out before buying her first house with her boyfriend in a couple of months.

They couldn't be happier but seasons of life eh?

Ah Thankyou @RainbowZebraWarrior it is what it is-the PIL have just left so I'm giving DH half an hour to reset himself and then we begin celebrating the birthdays (both Dh and Dd1). We are planning a muddy walk from one pub to another and back. The one day of the year that the step sons have to come for a walk and aren't allowed to moan about it (they like it once there on it anyway, it's just the getting them there).

Nigel is so right about the Boxing Day sandwich. My favourite meal of the year! We have so much food leftover from yesterday as none of us even wanted any Christmas tea so looking forward to that later.

A lovely restful Boxing Day to all.