Because Tis the Season right?

Thanksgiving

Was a success! I prepared most of the dishes the day before, apart from the pecan pie and Turkey, so it was just a case of throwing all the side dishes in the oven whilst the Turkey was resting. I used this method, and it came out AMAZING! 14.5lb turkey cooked in 2 3/4 hours, the skin was crispy and the meat was so moist and tasty. Plus the added bonus of only having to rotate it every 30 mins was nice! Last Christmas I was running round and barely spent time with my SO all morning because I was fussing over the food; I think this method of doing things was much better!

We also got to skype with my SO's family. I love Grandpa so much! He pretty much got over excited, pushed everybody else out of the way and took up about 90% of the call lol I'm glad my SO got to see them all at any rate. That was the only thing I couldn't make up for. He was smiling all day though, so I think he enjoyed it too!

Christmas

All our Christmas shopping is done, apart from getting Mr Dave some sort of edible treat. I was going to buy something last week, but when we were getting all the Christmas stuff out, he found his stocking and seemed to remember about all the goodies it held last year... he keeps going and sitting next to the Christmas tree, willing me with his googly-eyed stare to give him his presents- thank goodness he's too well-mannered to rip anything up! I think I'll just go to the pet store the week of, then he can't be tempted too much!

Also thinking of what to cook, because its my favourite thing! Thanksgiving is my SO's, but Christmas is mine! His family doesn't do a big meal for Christmas so he's never associated it as a "food" holiday, but as its the only big holiday my family celebrates really, I'm used to a feast! I'll be making the usual stuff for Christmas Dinner- roast potatoes, roast squash, steamed vegetables, bacon rolls, bacon-wrapped sausages, stuffing and Yorkshire puddings, but I don't know what meat I'm cooking. My family usually has Buffalo (yes weird, in the middle of Yorkshire, England, in between the vast fields of sheep, we have a buffalo and kangaroo farm ), but strangely, I can't find it anywhere unless I want to spend a few grand on a whole one. Soooo I'll just have to decide between Roast beef or chicken instead.

Then we have Christmas Tea which is usually an assortment of Indian nibbles like samosas, bhajis and pakoras, then cheeses, crackers, pate... basically anything my mum doesn't have cook lol. I'm going to downscale and just do the cheese and pate. And then finally, there's the sweet goodies. My Grandma usually makes a traditional fruit cake, and christmas pudding, but I think they're both vile, so I get creative with dessert. Last year I made a white chocolate peppermint cheesecake. It was awesome, but took 3 days to make because of the different layers, so I've opted for a simple peppermint poke cake instead, which won't take too long to prepare. I also want to make some kind of truffles- I've never made them before so I thought I'd have a go!

My SO also has a white elephant thingy next week for work. We're not allowed to spend any money, just use stuff from around the house (Actually the secretary put "You're not allowed to spend a penny" and it made me lol- "spend a penny" is a euphemism for going to the bathroom in the UK). I always have my baking cupboard stocked so I figured I could make him some sugar cookies to take, the problem being, I only have a giant dinosaur cookie cutter... maybe I can fashion a Santa hat for it to make it the Christmas Brontosaurus? I've got a week to come up with it anyways lol

New Years

We haven't really done New Years since we went to Paris, so we've been thinking we should find somewhere fun to go downtown. There's 4 big parties, a Fairy party, A Block Party, A formal ball, and The White Rose Gala. The Gala is the cheapest and looks really fun, however, it is Roaring 20's/Gatsby themed, so we'd both have to spend money on something to wear, which would bring it to the price of the others, and its not an open bar. The only other one I would go to is the Fairy Ball- it takes place in the actual clock tower in downtown Denver which is pretty freaking cool and has an open bar. It is however, $175 each =/ I dunno. Its a lot of money for one night, and I'd feel a bit lame not knowing anybody else. Maybe we'll wait till next year to have a blow out NYE, hopefully I'll be working by then and it won't be too much of a big deal!