Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Christmas must be one of my favorite holidays. On my previous post I wrote about things that has uplifted my Christmas spirit... The final thing, which I didn’t even dare to say out loud before I was absolutely sure it would happen was that my brother came to spend the Christmas with us for the first time in four years. Since he moved to another city, it has been rather difficult to assemble a Christmas together. But, that was the final thing that sparked up my Christmas spirit, which had been missing to the very last days that preceded Christmas Eve.

We had some plans what to do, but instead we sat down and talked for hours and hours – something we hadn’t have the opportunity to do face to face in years. We literally talked through the whole days!

On Christmas Eve, we slept late and later we made a lot of food, something for everyone. In fact, making food and eating was the only time we were rather quiet. Every other time we just talked and talked.

For an appetizer before the Christmas dinner I had ryemeal bread with fake fish roe mousse and dill. 

Like every year, I made a seitan “ham” in a place of regular ham. It is a big part of my food on Christmas.

For my big surprise, my brother said that he will taste everything on the table – even the traditional casseroles which he said he doesn’t really like that much. I was prepared for him starting to joke about my diet and foods but instead, he even tasted the seitan I had made. His reaction made me smile; he was very careful how to say it out loud, for he is a meat-eater to his very core but even he did say that seitan isn’t his thing he didn’t hate it. That meant a lot to me, for he must have had the image of my very first attempt to make seitan in his head so he must have waited it to be as horrible as back then.  

We hadn’t really prepared to bake anything but out of an impulse my brother decided to make a chocolate cake out of everything he could find and it turned out to be one of the best cakes I’ve eaten.

On this year there were not many gifts but as I’ve gotten older I don’t really feel like needing any, even it is nice to get something, but it’s not a necessity anymore... What is even more important for me is celebrating Christmas together with the people I love. 

The cats were a bit shy at first for they hadn’t seen my brother in such a long time, but then they got accustomed to him and acted like he has never been gone. All the food got our cats curious and they even tried to be rude in order to get it, stalking on the chairs, near the table, staring at us with their gleaming eyes... With cats you feel never alone – someone is always watching.

I must say I had one of the best Christmases I’ve ever had – if not the best!