Christmas at my aunt's

although we're the same family, we have quite different ways of celebrating Christmas. i didn't know this, but Little Christmas Eve, as we call the 23rd of December, is in fact the evening where you decorate the Christmas tree (which was, in the old days, then hidden from children's view until the evening of the 24th). which explained why the tree didn't come up till the evening my sister got there. so once we'd had dinner, my aunt made eggnog, which we drank while decorating the tree. i'd never had eggnog before, but it was quite nice. earlier in the day, we'd made chocolate and marzipan bits. my mother used to do the same but she would just cut a piece of marzipan and press it onto a big piece of chocolate. my aunt cut the marzipan into small pieces that we had to roll in our hands and then press between 2 smaller round pieces of chocolate, which took its time.

only on Christmas Eve did we have the mulled wine. before dinner only. then we had the rice pudding for starters, followed by the main course. she would normally have made riz a l'amande for dessert, but the various problems we'd had during the week killed that, so we had a nice chocolate mousse instead. then we lit the tree and danced around it. but they only danced for one song, which was playing on a CD. we thought that was a bit on the short side so the three of us continued for a while. finally, it was time to open the presents. while there were tons, it actually took us less time than last year: one of the 'kids' was in charge of handing out gifts, which made it faster. also, when it came to D's girlfriend's turn, she gave out a bunch of presents all at once - although she didn't say anything, i could tell my aunt wasn't impressed at this change of pace.

as far as we were concerned, that was it. except that the following afternoon, after the big Christmas lunch - which was pretty much the same as ours - there were filled stockings in the living room. apparently, they'd adopted the American way of doing things when my cousins were small. but these presents were - luckily - smaller and mostly for fun: soap, emery boards, boxer shorts and tangerines. and that was, finally, it. time to relax.