I’ll be peeling, chopping and stuffing to a soundtrack of Breakfast At Tiffany’s
So, how did you get on over the Christmas? Did you deck, or just wreck, the halls? Turkey a little on the dry side, was it? Did Auntie Mary go mad on the sherry again? Look, I appreciate that there may be some of you actually reading this on Christmas Eve. But honestly, if you’ve time to leaf through the bulkier than usual Sunday papers today, then with the greatest respect, you’re not doing it properly. Today is about prepping, chopping, washing, mixing, cooking, wrapping, and — in my house at least — a massive treasure hunt as you wrack your brains to remember where the hell you put that present you bought back in October.
If you’re a man, then your busy day will probably involve a number of short and frankly mysterious car journeys to places unknown — there is no time today for an inquisition — and about 20 trips to the shops to get that one more thing that’s been forgotten. In other words, the appropriate time to read this column is about four days from now, most likely as you’re tearing up the magazine to set a fire that you know you probably shouldn’t be lighting any more because it’s literally about 14 degrees in December but hey, it’s Christmas.
Christmas Eve is the most wonderfully busy time of the year. Some people, maybe a lot of people, hate it. People are lonely, people are sad, people are acutely reminded of the absence of people who used to sprinkle joy over their Christmases. But for the cooks, the caterers and the bottle washers, there’s too much going on to give any space to sadness. There are giblets to be boiled, for God’s sake.
People are sometimes surprised that I thrive on the industry of Christmas Eve but I suppose it’s sort of an Irish Mammy, some of us like the misery of making tea, thing. In my fantasy version of the day, It’s A Wonderful Life would be on the television in the kitchen in the morning, forcing my yawning children, as each enters the room, to retreat to the living room amidst howls of protest over ‘this s*** being on again’, leaving me to the peace and quiet of peeling potatoes, carrots and sprouts for 12 people while occasionally glancing up to see how George Bailey is getting on. I’ve already checked the schedule and I won’t be spending the early part of today in Bedford Falls, because I’m off to New York for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and that will do the job nicely, thank you very much.
The order of the industry is important. Other cooks will have their own way of doing things, but mine goes like this: put on the ham, make the trifle, prepare a mountain of sprouts, peel and chop a comparable heap of carrots and about half the amount of parsnips, peel 36 potatoes, cook 12 of them and make potato stuffing, heat the milk with the herbs and spices for the bread sauce, wonder if it’s OK to use the same jar of mace I’ve been using for years now because there is literally nothing else I ever put it into, take delivery of a turkey, remove its neck and giblets, boil them up for stock, prepare the turkey for the oven and put it in the shed if it’s cold enough — it won’t be — or literally take every shelf out of the fridge in order to stuff it in while swearing and sweating profusely. Make the sausage meat stuffing, glaze the ham, prepare the fish for the two diners who’ve gone over to the dark side and probably about 40 other small things that I can’t remember right now but will come back to me as muscle memory kicks in while George Peppard flirts with Holly Golightly through his apartment window.
The first time I ever did Christmas dinner, I thought I would die of exhaustion, even though I was only cooking for four and I was in my early 30s. Now, it’s falling off a log territory and because I no longer have to check cook books or timings, I can enjoy the whole mindlessness of it. I don’t have to think about it and in a busy working life, a whole day off from thinking is a treat — even if it is spent making endless trips out to the aforementioned shed with pots of chopped vegetables and trays of stuffing. And I realise that this is possibly the most passive aggressive and definitely the most Irish mammy column I’ve ever written — but hey, it’s my Christmas too.
Whatever floats your own (gravy) boat, I hope you too find a little piece of happiness in yours.