Seasons Greetings

[Hebe]

I think I'll go for the sangria! (Perhaps minus the brandy for safety.)

[Jovial Monk]

If drinking during the day avoid reds and stick to whites. Dry with food, a sweeter or more fuller bodied one with desert and after the meal.

[Auzgurl]

If drinking during the day avoid reds and stick to whites. Dry with food, a sweeter or more fuller bodied one with desert and after the meal.

Thanks dita...Ill be a wine expert before long..ha ha.

[Jovial Monk]

If drinking during the day and especially if drinking outside. . .

I will go to the big family dinner, my contribution will be a couple Kg roasted honey soy spare ribs. vegetate afterwards. No booze cuz I will be driving home.

[Auzgurl]

I don't normally drink before the sun goes down and havent in actual fact I havent drank for a while..being preggers etc changed my habits..But lately have taken to revivng an interest in the odd tipple ..esp red as it is good for you I believe..so its a health kick,

I dont have to drive so thats a bonus.

I'd like to share a Christmas story from when I was 14 yr old girl.

My dad tried pig farming for a bit ( we lived on a station in outback NSW..schooling was a challenge)..our pigs attracted a few wild pigs ...one day a small male wild pig turned up on our "doorstep"..having a penchant for the underdog we domesticated him.He was a runt and we called him Snorkels.., (we loved him even tho' he was small ,smelly , a bad conversationalist and shortsighted )..

Well the following Christmas we were all having a jolly time eating our most delicious pork roast when dad announced that we were in actual fact eating "Snorkels"..I tried to vomit up my Chrissy lunch and the same time as feeling nauseous..I was also grieving (thats a skill I can tell you).

My worst Christmas ever..but memorable.

Poor Snorkels.

[mantra.]

Well the following Christmas we were all having a jolly time eating our most delicious pork roast when dad announced that we were in actual fact eating "Snorkels"..I tried to vomit up my Chrissy lunch and the same time as feeling nauseous..I was also grieving (thats a skill I can tell you).

My worst Christmas ever..but memorable.

Poor Snorkels.

What an awful story Auzgurl. Did you ever "thank" your father in later years for making that Xmas so memorable. I know what you went through though. My grandparents were farmers and I regularly visited and had hand raised a baby lamb at one stage who I loved. Being a city girl - I assumed he was a pet and he'd be there on my next visit - but alas no - my poor little Baba had met the same fate as Snorkels. My aunt had done the slaughtering and I never really forgave her after that - she thought it was funny. To a child these callous acts stay in your memory for years.

[Auzgurl]

Well the following Christmas we were all having a jolly time eating our most delicious pork roast when dad announced that we were in actual fact eating "Snorkels"..I tried to vomit up my Chrissy lunch and the same time as feeling nauseous..I was also grieving (thats a skill I can tell you).

My worst Christmas ever..but memorable.

Poor Snorkels.

What an awful story Auzgurl. Did you ever "thank" your father in later years for making that Xmas so memorable. I know what you went through though. My grandparents were farmers and I regularly visited and had hand raised a baby lamb at one stage who I loved. Being a city girl - I assumed he was a pet and he'd be there on my next visit - but alas no - my poor little Baba had met the same fate as Snorkels. My aunt had done the slaughtering and I never really forgave her after that - she thought it was funny. To a child these callous acts stay in your memory for years.

Poor BaBa mantra..and your Aunt was obviously a typical farm girl if she could kill a sheep. I had an Auntie who had no compunction about lopping off the heads of chickens.

Yes these incidents do stay with you.My father tried to indoctrinate my brother into the ways station life and part of this was slaughtering of the weekly "killer" (this was what dad called a sheep) no butcher shop outback.. My brother could not for the life him ,take a knife and cut he throat of an innocent defencless animal. My dad never really forgave him or this inherent weakness.. ( this was dads way of thinking..)My father was also a farm boy and would have been indoctrinated the same way by his dad..he had little respect for animals.

Brother was a true animal lover for most of his life..

[Rainbow Moonlight]

Ok me first..

Going to the city..and its outdoors ..the Weber is the core peice of cooking equipment... so its not me ( for once..) having to kill myself in a boiling hot kitchen ..such joy.

If only we had snow and the whole white Christmas fantasy we only dream of here in Australia..its hard trying to adhere to traditons of old England when its hot enough to fry and egg on the footpath..40+ etc.

So I'm packing the Christmas carols CD and filling the esky with oysters and local fish and turkey ( soonish ) and its the whole festive fiasco ,this time not at my place...( which is always a boon ).

Can anyone recommend a nice wine or other drink. I dont like very potent spirits that take out your eye balls.

Black Opal Traminer riesling is nice and would go with your food. Most other traminers are also nice. Chianti or even pink champagne would also go okay with that food.

[boxy]

LOL, I love how people from a different era (an era where you know there was no butcher handy to get cling wrapped slabs of Snorkel) were "indoctrinated"! It was a fact of life, FFS. Kill your own, or go without.

HTFU hippies

[Rainbow Moonlight]

Poor Snorkels. That was my reaction when I was told fish fingers were fish and, when i objected to eating fish I was told and then horrified that people ate little lambs (just like Mary's little lamb.) And the neighbour's cut the head off a chicken and it ran around without its head, which kind of emphasised the once living nature of "meat". I was a pretty determined four or five year old- that was it for me- vegetarian from then on. First the fish and lamb then all meat.