Ahh Christmas – the celebration of life, light, joy, family and feasting!

If your Christmas is anything like mine it involves too much food, too much wine, and too much laughter. But really can you have too much laughter?

The food starts well before Christmas day. There are office parties, lunches with those folks you need to see before the holidays begin, baking, quick bites to eat while shopping. For me the food kicks in to a higher gear starting around December 21st. Because I still have a school age child – the Christmas holidays usually start around that day and so does eating and drinking in a festive way!

Our tradition has become that the tree goes up on December 21st – to honour the solstice. The tree proudly wearing the a star shining brightly, and covered in many lights. That is when the overload begins – so queue the food! Really you cannot have a tree-trimming without a festive meal. And then Christmas cookies and eggnog as you decorate. A bulb for the tree – and a cookie for me!

December 24th is the time for a pre-feast. In my case in can be anything at all from tourtiere ( a French meat pie) to a nice roast beef. This year it was a lovely prime rib since prime rib was on sale! Gorgeous.

And yesterday was a more traditional turnkey dinner.

So today is the Feast of Leftovers! Prime rib, turkey, masked potatoes, every vegetable you can name. Oh it is glorious laid out buffet style for people to pick and choose. Add some fruit and cheese and whatever else is lurking in the fridge and well there you go: Enjoy!

May you also have a Happy Feast of Leftovers!

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• Feast of Leftovers: Prime Rib Soup! (merlinspielen.com)
• Feast of Leftovers: Turkey Soup! (merlinspielen.com)