Now the crazy starts.
It has been relatively calm up until this point in the preparation for Sunday Christmas with my wife's family, but once Saturday morning arrives, it is going to get pretty intense. Well I should say, my wife is going to get pretty intense.
The chill is gone.
The first thing on the cards (for her) is going to be getting the ham in the over for its first round of high temperature heating, before the heat is lowered and it will cook for another nine hours or so, according to her calculations.
Her calculations are rarely correct.
Out of the ten or eleven Christmases we have spent together, it has been me up at 3 am, waiting for the ham to finish about 6 or 7 times. However, this will be the first large ham that we have made in this particular oven, so perhaps it might be more on time than usual, which would be nice.
What is also a bit of a change this year is that the "Christmas clean" was facilitated by a couple professionals - a husband and wife duo who spent about four hours here. We have booked cleaners for other Christmases, but this is the first ones that have actually shown up and they did a really good job. It is relatively expensive to get cleaners here, but there is a 60% tax rebate on the work, which means that it isn't too bad. Of course, the price reflects the rebate a bit too, but the couple seemed nice and I think it is good to support local businesses.
My job?
Other than the snow work, which will need to be done every day for the next three at least, the major thing for me is to clean the sauna, which hasn't been used in about 2.5 years. It isn't the most wonderful sauna in the world as the previous owners "made it themselves" - and obviously didn't know what they were doing. One day it will need to be redone, but for now, we should use it more and enjoy what we can of it, as even though it is very far from great, it is better than nothing.
Oh, I have to wrap some presents as well. I don't have many to wrap however, as we have a "one gift rule" for the adults, and this is on a name chosen from a hat. I did get something for my wife though, just something small. Of course, Smallsteps will get most of her very sensible wishes granted, especially since they are things we were going to get at some point for her anyway. The big one is piano lessons, which are frightfully expensive in Finland, even for a twenty minute beginner sessions. She is musical though, so it is a good place to start. The other things on the list,
- fleece pants (she lost hers at school [then found them], but needs a new pair)
- a headband with dog ears (can't find one anywhere)
- mouse socks (her cousin found some)
- a night away with mummy (they will spend a night at a spa center in the city, swimming)
- an easy to read book (will get her a beginner piano book)
- and the piano lessons (which we were going to get her this coming year)
Not a toy on the list.
Her piano teacher lives just down the road, so it means that Smallsteps can walk there after school and then home herself. The teacher is a friend of our neighbors, but teaches through the academy of music in the city. There aren't any "casual" teachers about it seems - everything is formal. However, perhaps that is a good thing for Smallsteps anyway. What was interesting to hear is, in the first lesson they will do things like catching and throwing a ball to test dexterity, and some tasks to check if they are patient enough. Smallsteps will love this bit the most - she loves tests.
She didn't get it from me.
I am remembering all the other things I still have to do tomorrow that I have forgotten about.
Might do the first round of snow work after this, to get a jump on it. It will be about 2am.
Hosting Christmas is a lot of work, but it is also something that is important to my wife, so I guess it is worth it. Just don't tell her, otherwise more will go on my list. However, I barely talk during Christmas, because most people won't speak in English with me, so there is really only my wife's older niece and nephew to speak with, and even their partners (weirdly for young people) barely speak English.
I spend most of my time as a waiter.
But, what I am looking forward to is seeing how the kitchen performs on the battlefield, because we haven't used it to cater for so many people yet. We hosted two years ago in the unrenovated kitchen and it was quite terrible. Hopefully, with a better appointed layout and more useable bench space for serving from, it will work out well.
Kitchens are the soul of the home.
And on Christmas day proper, it will be used for preparing leftovers for my friend, who is coming to spend a couple days with us. And of course, mixing some gin tonics. I am looking forward to a couple chill days just shooting the shit and hanging out, with nothing much planned.
We will have a crappy sauna though.
What are you wishing for this Christmas?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]