Christmas Roundup 2009

Miss Seven decorated her own chocolate brownie cupcake. She likes sugar. Poor little deer looks like she's caught in a snowdrift.
Better late than never with the roundup. Ah, the hot, lazy Christmas holidays. Is there anything better? I've been doing very little except eating and lazing. Yesterday was the most excellent beach weather so I hung out with some special peeps down at the beach - bliss!

As for the roundup, Christmas day weather was a bit of a fizzer. Just as we were setting up our feast under the liquid amber tree, like last year, it started to rain and everything had to packed up and all had to retreat indoors. Got a quick couple of picks of the table, but that's it folks. I made my first ever- from scratch- fruit mince pies (see top pic) and they were delicious and will be making them again. We had a Christmas Eve bash and my older sister and I put on dinner and desserts. My sister made cookies/biscuits for a cookie tree she put together. The cookies were so cute. She also made cookies for placecards for Christmas day. I made fruit mince pies and a black forest cheesecake, which since Christmas day I've made another. Yummmmm. My sister made chocolate brownie cupcakes with a chocolate ganache (see pic above) which are crazy delicious and her famous cranberry/pistachio biscotti and pistachio shortbread chocolate dipped biscuits.

Gosh I love Christmas. There are certain foods I eat at Christmas which to me are only Christmas food and I never eat them at any other time, even though I love them so much. Sort of crazy to think of foods as only Christmas food, but anyhoo here is my line up that I look forward to every year.

1. Pistachio Shortbread chocolate dipped biscuits

2. Turkey with pistachio/cranberry sage stuffing

3. Chocolate almonds

4. Fruit mince pies

5. Cranberry/onion/sage/apple chutney (eaten with turkey and an array of both soft and hard cheeses)

So what's on your list?