Christmas in Mississauga


On the morning of Saturday, January 4 I left for the Polish deli to get some meats and cheese for lunch. Grant, Evelyn, Trooper and Mark were all coming over to spend the day. It was a cold and windy morning and I had just come in with my face frozen red when the phone rang. I hadn’t even taken off my shoes yet. Mark was calling to tell me that he was leaving. After I put the food in the fridge, I went on-line to check for any E-mail messages from Grant and Evelyn and they wrote to say they were leaving shortly. I had a firmer sense of their arrival when the moment I got downstairs Evelyn called from the car to say they were at Mavis and the 401, so I had a bit of time to prepare the lunch platters. I was still getting it all together when they arrived:

This was the first time we enjoyed snow crab legs at a post-Christmas lunch. We waited patiently for Mark to arrive before we all dug into the feast.

After lunch, the first gifts we opened were the stockings. In order that Grant and Evelyn would have something to unwrap from me on Christmas Day, I prepared two smaller stockings filled with wrapped presents when they visited on December 14. The stockings they received today were therefore not as full as they usually were, and had mostly unwrapped gifts inside:

From left to right: Grant’s, Evelyn’s, Trooper’s and the last two are Mark’s

Evelyn is holding Trooper’s stocking

Grant just got some orange Pop Shoppe pop

Evelyn with her enormous stocking. Trooper’s loot is behind her on the couch.

Mark got some gingerbread-scented dishwashing liquid

Evelyn with lime rickey and orange pop from the Pop Shoppe

Chocolate angels for Mark

After we opened up (mostly) everything downstairs, I summoned everyone to go to the tree upstairs because more gifts awaited them there:

A Sodastream for Evelyn

New tackle box for Grant

New dishes for Mark

And new slippers too

Back downstairs:

Mark had so much in his stockings that he opened up the contents in two instalments.

Standing at the tree, decorated the same way as it was 54 years earlier

At 2:30 I got the turkey ready for roasting. Evelyn and I coated it with butter and we took it out twice to baste. I removed the foil covering to crisp up the skin half an hour before it was due to come out of the oven. When it was ready to take out, after four hours, I was thrilled to hear a crinkling sound when I started to carve it. The skin was so crispy! However I had difficulty carving it and didn’t know why; I had prepared turkey before at past dinners and carved it just fine. When I had had enough battling the turkey, I asked Grant to carve more of it while I tended to the other dishes. It was only later on that evening on the drive to Mark’s that I realized that I had placed the turkey in the roasting pan upside down. No wonder the white breast meat was so hard to get at! I had plenty of already-carved turkey leftovers to tide me over until today, two days later, when I had to turn the bird over in the pan and could carve it with ease.

At 6:00 my two additional dinner guests arrived: Sarah and Abbey, whom I had the pleasure of working with when I was redeployed to the South Common Library during the Central Library renovation. I have had Sarah over for dinner once before and Abbey twice, and in my experience hosting Christmas dinners, it is always a lot more fun to share the experience with more friends. As I approached retirement, and definitely afterward, I have hosted quite a number of dinners at my place. No holidays or special occasions necessary; when I want to entertain, I entertain!

Evelyn took a photo of her dinner plate:

I think it was two or three Christmas dinners ago in Bedford, Mark’s nephew Matthew’s wife Angela brought a delicious carrot dish. I normally don’t prepare carrot dishes yet Angela’s honey glazed carrots were so good, I wanted to make them tonight. I bought two bunches of carrots, still with their long stems attached, and followed Angela’s easy recipe. They were so good. I will be making them again.

In addition to turkey, we had seven sides: mashed potatoes seasoned with summer savoury, honey glazed carrots, kernel corn, broccoli, two kinds of gluten-free pasta, salad and stuffing. The latter two were made by Mark. I made gravy loaded with mushrooms and Mark brought cranberry sauce. For dessert Sarah kindly brought a cherry pie and a gluten-free chocolate cake and blueberries.

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