And so to Christmas Day

I had always wanted to walk along the beach on Christmas morning with the dogs in the warm Spanish sunshine - just because I could.

BUT......

Christmas morning dawned cool and overcast and so it was a normal walk around the Campo before breakfast. Trust me, the dogs would probably prefer to be on the Campo as they can be off the lead and they enjoy their freedom.

So, once back at home and breakfast over we got down to the serious stuff - opening the pups pressies - and for more on that see Brinkley's blog http://www.2littlepuppies.blogspot.com/

We were due to have Christmas dinner round at Annie's Bistro. She had done a trial run on Christmas dinner for the ladies group and made a good effort at a traditional english christmas dinner considering Anika is Belgian. However, there were a couple of things missing that were important. So, we had been shopping a couple of days earlier and bought Cranberry Sauce and Apple Sauce. I had order Christmas Crackers to be delivered along with some of the gifts I had ordered from Hawkins Bazaar (I love that shop). http://www.hawkin.com/ which had arrived without problem through the post.

Our crackers had little mechanical sprouts in them

so we could have sprout races after dinner - doesn't everyone?

But the main thing missing was Sage & Onion stuffing. Now, we had tried to describe this to Anika but she couldn't understand the concept of making stuffing from breadcrumbs and so I had offered to make enough stuffing balls for everyone for Christmas Day. Now, what I hadn't realised until Neil worked it out, was just how much breadcrumbs, chopped onions and Sage we would need to make enough for 40 people.

We struggled to find dried Sage initially and so Andrew and Chris both brought some with them from the UK ( since then we have found somewhere locally). So, on Christmas Eve I had peeled and chopped 10 onions ( needless to say there were loads and loads of tears), removed the crusts and crumbed 3 loaves and left it to be put together by Neil ready for cooking on Christmas morning.

So, after pressie opening, we were back to making stuffing balls. And trust me 40 balls is a lot of balls.

At 1.30pm we tootled off to Annie's armed with stuffing balls and crackers when, halfway there, I remembered we had forgotten the Cranberry - so Neil had to go back for it.

There were hors d'oevres when we arrived along with Champagne and then the Christmas menu was Prawn Cocktail, Asparagus Soup, Turkey and all the trimmings follows by Chocolate Mousse. Annie's Bistro is a small place and 40 people is a lot to feed from a small kitchen but Anika and Danny did a great job. However, when we received our main course we were a little surprised to see there was a certain lack of stuffing balls. Had there been a crisis in the kitchen? No, we were the first table to be served and they had forgotten to put them on, not a problem though, the were soon brought to be added to the plate.

I have to say we had a really good time on Christmas Day, we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner and as we were sat eating it we could look out through the Bistro doors towards the sea. By early afternoon the sky had cleared and we had a beautiful blue sky and equally blue sea, the sun was shining and it was how I had imagined Christmas Day in the south of Spain would be. Unfortunately, an excess of Champagne meant I really wasn't upto that Christmas Day walk on the beach - hey ho, there's always next year!

Happy Christmas!