Sunday night, 27 December 2009
The night before Christmas breakfast with my family, Jac and I got things ready and cleaned and tidied the house. We put our new Santa Claus mat in the hallway and Billy Lee immediately sat on it. Believe it or not, this is her happy face. Heheheh.

We still haven’t found a dining set we like, so when we’re entertaining guests over a meal at our house, we use one or both of our trestle tables. For Christmas breakfast, we put the two tables together and threw a party tablecloth over them. Pixel sat at the table watching my every move and meowed at me as if to say, “So, when do we eat?”

Monday 28 December
The next morning, Juji and Jay came over early to help out. We made cups of tea and then got to work. Juji had glazed a leg of ham, which she put in the oven and kept basting.

I got to work getting the poffertjes (dutch mini pancakes) batter ready while Juji made the waffle batter (see recent post Poffertjes (dutch mini pancakes) test run).

Jac suggested we set up a cooking station out on the patio so we could keep some of the cooking heat out of the kitchen. We laid newspaper down to catch the batter drips. Juji made the waffles and I made the poffertjes.

Billy Lee watched as we cooked, of course.

We used one box of poffertjes mix and the basic waffle recipe from the booklet that came with the waffle maker.

These were the waffles made with the last of the batter.

Here’s the ham, moments before my brother sliced it. It looked just perfect – I couldn’t wait to have some.

The ham looked and smelled delicious. The sound of the knife slicing through the ham made me want some all the more. Even if I wasn’t taking photographs of the ham being sliced, I’d have stood right there, next to the ham carver and next to that wonderful ham.

I’d thought the ham looked good in the oven, all shiny and glistening, but it looked even more mouth-watering all sliced up.

My brother-in-law M fried the bacon in our electric fry pan out at the cooking station.

I left Juji to finish cooking the last batch of poffertjes and started cooking the scrambled eggs. I don’t think these were my best scrambled eggs – I may have overcooked them a little in the midst of juggling my kitchen/hosting duties.

Juji and Jay brought in the mini pancakes and waffles.

There was smoked salmon (Jac sliced up lemon wedges for the salmon too).

My sister-in-law Ange brought over a dish of her special baked stuffing, the vegetable dish in an otherwise high-protein, high-carb breakfast! Actually, we were supposed to have mushrooms and tomatoes too, but we all forgot about them! Mark and Ange had brought them along ready to cook but with everything going on forgot to take them out of the esky, and the rest of us completely forgot about them too! But it didn’t really matter, as there was PLENTY of food – we didn’t miss tomatoes or mushrooms at all!

The feast was laid out on the kitchen counter so everyone could help themselves buffet-style. Oh yes – and I haven’t mentioned yet, there were three kinds of sausages too.

This was my plate, round one.

Let me tell you, durian jam goes very well with dutch mini pancakes!

When everyone had eaten their fill, we started tidying up. Takeaway containers for whoever wanted them! I labeled the boxes so there’d be no confusion later. My brother selected items for his daughters – sausages for Ruby (they were her favourite item of the breakfast), waffle and poffertjes for Zoe, and ham and plate scraps for Honey the dog.

It turned into quite an assembly line! Luckily, I’m just like my mum and hoard plastic takeaway containers. :-P

All full from breakfast, we sat in the living room and exchanged gifts and talked and just relaxed a while. Then Mark sliced up the fruit and assembled this lovely fruit platter.

The cats had quietly disappeared as soon as everyone began to arrive. They don’t mind hanging around when we’ve got only one or two guests, but if it’s a group, they tend to hide. I found Billy Lee under Jac’s desk in our bedroom. She seemed happy enough.

Pixel was asleep, all curled up on our bed. She did peer at me briefly through sleepy eyes, but didn’t move at all.

It was time for coffee and tea and some homebaked treats. My eldest sister CW had made shortbread and gingerbread, and Ange and Ruby had made gingerbread too.

The shortbread was melt-in-the-mouth, lovely and buttery.

CW’s had made gingerbread bears, decorated by her hubby M.

Ange and Ruby made gingerbread men (or should I say people).

I love gingerbread and I didn’t hesitate to have one of each. I like to decapitate my gingerbread and munch on the heads first. First, a gingerbread bear head…

…then, a gingerbread man head. Gingerbread goes so wonderfully well with a cup of tea. I wish I had some right now!