Making Christmas

Christmas has come early as I got the new stereo system for us as an early present. And to entice Dragon's Christmas spirits I got also several CDs worth of Christmas music... yes, I'm that old. But hey, it worked a treat, and we decorated the Christmas tree tonight while listening Nightmare Before Christmas (See how I transformed this old rat / Into a most delightful hat) and a bit more traditional Elvis' best Christmas songs.

My mom keeps telling me that we should use this opportunity of spending the Christmas alone to create our traditions. So we've kind of started - as Dragon has to still work tomorrow morning, we did the tree decorating tonight. We'll have rice porrage for lunch when he comes home - good news is that unlike in Britain, it's actually possible to get lactose free milk here. Evening menu-wise the offering is going to be humble compared to the full menu my mother offers: freshly salted sockeye salmon (graavilohi) and boiled potatoes for starters, ham with mustard and apple crust and mushy peas (Christmas delicacy from Dragon's side) for main course (and for the Brits reading this, mushy peas are indeed a Christmas delicacy in Finland!) and plum croissant pudding for dessert (my own adaptation of the British bread pudding).

So everything is mostly in order for tomorrow, I still have to pop into the shops tomorrow morning to get couple of more things that I just couldn't carry tonight, especially after dragging that 15 kg stereo in an impossible shaped box from the city centre today. Mulled wine is still a delight - I've decided that I actually prefer this one cold, the vodka makes it so strong that when you heat it up the steam alone get me drunk.

Feeling a bit disorganised but writing everything down helps, as always. I just hope I'll manage to get everything done at least to an acceptable standard.