Merry Belated Christmas! It's hard to believe it has come and gone already. I know it's only the 27th today, but we spent the morning taking down our Christmas decorations and tidying up.
We had a wonderful, quiet, and lazy Christmas. It was our first year EVER (and maybe the only year ever) where we just celebrated the season just by ourselves. Well, my brother came down, but that barely counts. Besides, he's already gone up to Edmonton and we won't see him again for a week or so.
We opened presents on Christmas eve and Gemma was thrilled to see so many new toys! I got a giftcard to help me buy some boots (don't want to slip!) and some kitchen things, which i love getting.
I would say the highlight (or the lowlight, rather) of this Christmas was the turkey dinner. We were originally not going to have turkey, but i decided just a few days before that i wanted it, so we bought the smallest turkey in the history of turkeys - a 7 pounder. It was a utility grade, but i felt around it to make sure it had all its legs and wings, etc. I was actually more worried that it might be missing the innards or the neck (crucial for the best gravy). To my horror, when I opened it up the day before to brine it, we saw that half of its SKIN was missing! Every other part was there, but half of it's SKIN was missing! I got into a pessimistic mode right away. This pretty much guaranteed a dry turkey. Good thing we weren't expecting company.
Well, the turkey turned out okay. I think the brine must have saved it. However, it took forever to cook it, which was so surprising. Usually I make a turkey double this size, at about 15 lbs. I think it took just as long to cook this one! They say a stuffed turkey needs to cook about 16 minutes per pound, but when I took it out 2 hours later, it was still raw at the legs! I was totally not expecting that and the table was set and everything was ready, but we had to wait another hour for the stupid turkey to finish cooking. On top of that, i burned myself four times and now have wonderful tiger stripes along my forearm. And it gets better - when we finally all sat down to eat, i spilled the punch all over my homemade buns, ruining half of them!
But the mashed potatoes were the best I've had, the gravy (a new recipe) was delicious, and my usual go-to stuffing recipe didn't let me down. Gemma really enjoyed the dinner and ate everything as long as the stuffing was a part of it. The salad didn't get too wilty even though it was sitting in its dressing for an hour. Jesse actually commented that he liked this turkey better than any other turkey i've ever made as this one was drier and my turkeys are usually "too moist" for his taste. what a weirdo.
All in all, it was a Christmas I'll never forget. And while we enjoyed the quiet and comfort of being just our family, i have to admit that i miss the hustle, the bustle, and my crazy, but fun family. I can't wait to see everyone this weekend.
Hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones.
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