Some of you may remember that I was busy knitting a medieval-inspired sweater for Leah, which I blogged about here. I did, however, manage amidst all of this generalized laziness to get Emma and Leah to jump up during a 5-minute break in the rain, and take sweater photos in the garden, so I could write this post. Christmas Day and Boxing Day have been spent opening gifts, listening to music, reading books, playing games (the girls beat us twice in a row at Articulate), lots of knitting, sleeping (Emma, who is not only jet-lagged but exhausted from a busy first semester of university, fell asleep at noon on Christmas day and only woke up when we dragged her out of bed for dinner in the evening), cooking, eating and being lazy. Yes, yes, I know this is a knitting blog be patient – there will be knitting momentarily. I never think the English language quite so magical as I do when listening to Dylan Thomas. It is the most beautiful poem, and Dylan Thomas reads it so beautifully. The four of us have it memorized of course and all recite whole stretches of it under our breath. We ended Christmas Eve the way we always do, by listening to Dylan Thomas read A Child’s Christmas in Wales. We had some old friends join us for a traditional Christmas Eve salmon dinner (my husband is from Vancouver thus making salmon the default celebratory food). This year, it was Pfeffernüsse – made with tons of spices and rum and candied orange peel, they get better every day – and Kipferln – delicate and almondy and light and flaky. In addition to the New Orleans pralines, and rolled sugar cookies cut in Christmas shapes and decorated with colored sugar, we always make lots of German Christmas deliacies. On Christmas Eve, the girls put up and decorated the tree (a little late this year) and we baked lots of Christmas cookies. Lovely! We walked across the bridge to South Bank and looked at the gorgeous views of London at night, all misty with rain and blue and purple lights from the Christmas decorations. Doug took photos of entire galleries filled with fabulous antiquities and no people.
![histera pfefferneusse histera pfefferneusse](https://i0.wp.com/blog.lehmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/pnuts5.jpg)
I have never before been able to gaze at the Rosetta Stone without filtering it through a stream of tourists. We went to the British Museum late in the day and practically had the place to ourselves (at least by British Museum standards). Does everyone in London leave to spend Christmas on the coast perhaps, or are Londoners sensibly ensconsed inside for the week, leaving London to outsiders? We made the all important treks to Monmouth Coffee to stock up on espresso beans, and to Neal’s Yard Dairy to buy a box of cheese (no trip to London should miss Neal’s Yard). On Sunday, we spent the day in London which was virtually empty.
![histera pfefferneusse histera pfefferneusse](https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Pfeffernusse-Cookies3-scaled.jpg)
Emma arrived, very jet-lagged, on Friday afternoon. We are enjoying a lovely, peaceful Christmas. (Make them! The recipe is in Joy of Cooking. In regards to the last, I have eaten so many New Orleans pralines, I may need to avoid clothes with buttons for weeks.
#Histera pfefferneusse full#
The days are short and full of rain (boo!) so there have been no photo opportunities, and I have been perhaps a bit overindulgent with holiday food and wine (yay!) leading to spelling difficulties. I was experiencing laptop difficulties (boo!) and distracted by Emma coming home (yay!). I was busy – with work (boo!) and with Christmas preparations (yay!). Is this because I won the lottery and have been Island-shopping in the Carribean? No, I am afraid the truth is not so interesting (or profitable). It’s been over two weeks since I last published a post.