Even if I’m crap at Christmas, if
Following in my mum’s footsteps proved a disaster that ended in and the food and the lights. Perhaps it’s about holding those close
Ah, Christmas. So special. So fun. So magical. Well, that’s what I thought, as a little girl growing up on the west coast of Ireland. My mother would try to stave off sunlight deficiency disorder for us all by preloading Christmas on 1 November.
There were two reasons for this. The first is that winter in Ireland is the most depressing place on Earth. You can count the hours of daylight on one hand, the rain is relentless and it’s bone-chillingly cold but not actually cold enough for snow. That’s Ireland for you: neutral, even when it comes to the weather.
The second reason Christmas arrived so early was because my mum had a unique combination of talents: she was a garden designer, an exceptional cook and was “crafty”. She would hone these talents throughout the year until they reached peak elf status and Christmas would explode in our home like a confetti bomb. Except there was no confetti, because she also had taste.
We’re talking handmade wreaths from “a few things I found in the garden”, a lighting design that would shame Fifth Avenue and a variety of pots bubbling on the stove emitting aromas most commonly found in a fancy French brasserie.
I inherited none of these talents. None. She bought me a book when I left home called How to Boil an Egg and I’m still working through it 20 years later. And foliage? I’m like the grim reaper to plants.
It never occurred to me that I would ever truly need to learn these things. The elf-inchief was, after all, only a Facetime call away. And then… she died. DIED! Leaving me heartbroken but more importantly, for the purposes of this article, alone staring down the barrel of Christmas Future with the assumed mandate as the new matriarch to “create the magic of Christmas”.
I tried. I really did. But after the “Christmas incident of 2021” I’m not even allowed to wrap presents. (It’s a long story but suffice to say the emergency room did not feel paper cuts were high on the triage scale.)
I convinced myself the reason I wasn’t a good cook was that it just didn’t seem worth it to cook for four, so last year I invited 25
Cheat’s Tipsy Trifle
Christmas doesn’t have to be time-consuming and difficult. Fancy a fancy dessert that will keep your tippling uncle happy? You could spend hours making a plum pudding in October and feed it brandy every week for three months. Or you could ixnay that and throw a trifle together on Christmas Eve.
For the base (that’s the part at the bottom with bits of cake to soak up liquor), use a shop-bought Madeira cake or regular fruit cake from the bakery section of your local supermarket.
Check the liquor cabinet for leftover sherry or that bottle of liqueur that your grandad gave you and you forgot about (it’s at the back, behind the Old Brown Sherry). Or just use the Old Brown Sherry. Pour it over the cake in the bottom of the bowl. Not too much.
Make jelly from a packet. The directions are on the packet, at the back. Let it cool but not set.
Drain the tin of fruit cocktail you bought when you went to the shop for the cake, and spoon the fruit on top of the cake.
Pour the cooled jelly over the fruit. Put it in the fridge for a few hours for the jelly to set.
Buy a carton of ready-made custard, a carton of long life whipped cream and a jar of maraschino cherries (they’re in the bakery section near the hundreds and thousands and the muffin mixes). Buy some hundreds and thousands too.
If you want to soup up the custard, pour a tot of Klipdrift into it and give it a stir. (Ask your uncle where the Klipdrift is.) Pour the custard over the set jelly.
Pour the bought whipped cream on top. Put some hundreds of thousands on top, dot a few maraschino cherries here and there, and pop it in the fridge.
You don’t know what hundreds and thousands are?
Okay. Maybe just buy a fruit cake.