Calishmas
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
Ok, I wish I could have been home in Denmark for Christmas because it would have been great to be with you all - but still, I had a fantastic Christmas here! :)
It was nothing like our Christmas, that's for sure, but it was loads of fun!
We were supposed to be around 40 people all in all, but some people didn't show and some came and went. I think all in all we had around 25 people throughout the night, a more manageable amount. I was pretty happy with that, because this way I had a chance to learn most people's names and get to talk a bit to almost everyone.
The evening was divided between the two front houses of the property, remember there are 3 houses together, all owned by the family. First house is Rosie's cousin Betty's, 2nd is her tia and tio's (aunt and uncle) and last one is where we live, at her mother's. We had decorated our own Christmas tree at Rosie's mom's back in early December, with fake snow and everything. It was a terrible mess to do, and the tree foot was awful so the tree tipped over at one point, but the tree is gorgeous, in my opinion.
Since the tradition here is not live candles for one night, but electrical ones for a whole month, I asked if we had any fire blankets and fire extinguishers for electrical fires.
We didn't. The fire blanket had apparently been put away somewhere and her mom didn't have an extinguisher - in California! So Rosie and I insisted to get one before any lights were being plugged in, so we went and bought one at Home Depot.
The food
Well I knew we weren't going to have Danish Christmas food, but one thing I'd insisted on: Duck.
So Rosie and I had been all over La Puente, West Covina, Baldwin Park and the other towns of the area in search for one - no luck, no duck. All the stores had loads of chicken and turkey, but no duck. It was not until we found an Asian market near Rosie's mom's workplace that we lucked out - they had ONE duck. Head, feet and everything, but it was indeed a duck. The only problem was that although all signs were in English, the people behind the counter just looked slightly perplexed when we spoke to them. We asked for duck and he starts packing a chicken. It wasn't until Rosie started flapping her arms and saying QUACK QUACK that the message got through ^^ She used to have a pet duck (well 3 actually) so she does a very good "angry female duck" impersonation.
As for the stuffing, we'd both agreed that we didn't actually want it inside the duck, so I made it on the side. I had no clue how to do that, since I've never tried - I've only tasted what mom makes, but I did my best. A few apples and a bag of dried prunes, skinned, cut and cored the apples, and added a bit of water and steamed it all in a saucepan with a bit of salt and cinnamon (I know we don't normally use that, but I felt like it). When it was mushy, I added some of the fat from the roast duck, and fried it in that. Considering that was my first attempt at stuffing, it was surprisingly similar to what I'm used to so I had my duck and stuffing. The duck was good too, though it was Rosie's first attempt at duck roasting as well.
As for the rest...
I mentioned tamales, and those we had. I really like those actually, though they will never be Christmas food for me. The only problem is the smell of the boiled corn husks they're wrapped in, that is not nice. But once that's removed so you can eat the actual thing, it's quite good. I'm not much for the cheese ones, but the beef ones were great, and they'd been nice and made them white-boy friendly... no chili.
Tamales
I don't know if I've said this but Mexican food can be summed up in these 5 words: Corn, beans, chili, corn and more corn. EVERYTHING is made with corn - like their hot Christmas chocolate we got with the food. It was made on corn-water so it had a slightly thin slimy texture, with cinnamon, and was very very sweet. A little too sweet, even for me. It was nice, but I couldn't drink more than half a cup.
Then there was the soup.
It's called pozole and is made on pork bones and meat, with little hominy balls (made of, you guessed it, corn), chili and tomato mostly. The interesting thing about the soup is that it's served still with the bones in it, and with raw shredded white cabbage and sliced radishes on top, with a squeeze of lemon. I don't so much enjoy the concept with large bones still in my soup, but otherwise it was really good. The surprising thing was how much I liked it with the shredded cabbage. While it seemed out of place to look at, it really freshened it up in a pleasant way.
Pozole
Lastly there was tons of chips (crisps for you English types) and different cakes, including chocolate cakes and pumpkin pie. We still have 2 pies left over.
The food was served continuously over a period of a few hours, so people sort of just ate along the way when they felt like it. Nothing like the "we sit down and eat at 7, and wait for all to be seated" I'm used to from Christmases at home.
The games
The first thing we did was the Pinata. I didn't actually get to it before it was battered down, but it was fun to watch and film ;)
Brendan suffered a battle scar across the side of his face (a paper cut from the angry, battered Pinata), but will survive.
After the food, we moved to Betty's house and watched "National Lampoon: Christmas Vacation" (AKA Fars Fede Juleferie), while Eva made preparations for charades (one of Rosie's cousins, the one in the high heels battering the Pinata. She occasionally sounds exactly like Fran Dresher).
Then it was time for musical chairs. Rosie told me some horror stories about the viciousness of these people, so I had steeled myself for combat. As it turned out, the worst ones weren't there, so my aggressive charges won me the battle.
When people's butts were rested, the next game was on: Blind feeding. Two pairs were blindfolded in front of each other, one of each pair armed with a spoon and a chocolate pudding. Objective: To feed the other and finish the pudding first. Rosie and I were set to go on the last round, but apparently it got too messy so we moved on to charades before the turn got to us. Phew.
Charades was incredibly fun. No teams, everyone had a go and everyone guessed away. Danny got "give birth"... hilarity ensues.
The last game of the evening was insisted upon by the "elders"; Mexican bingo. It's exactly like the picture bingo we have in Denmark, only with Spanish writing (duh). It was actually really good for me, a good training in some of the words. As a result I am now fluent in Spanish! Assuming "fluent" means that I can say "boot, cactus, death, arrows and mermaid" with no grammar. Betty was merciless though, so I had to think fast if I wanted a chance to fill my card with hardly a second between each new one.
The presents
Most of the gifts were obviously for the children, but the adults had a Secret Santa arrangement, so each adult only gave one gift to one other, randomly picked. Alex, the guy I had gotten a gift for, wasn't there so that was a bit of a shame.
Rosie gave me some really cool World of Warcraft merchandise, including a Murloc plushie that goes "Mrglrglmrglmll" when you press it ^^ You'd have to be a WoW nerd to understand, but take my word for it - it's cool :D Rosie's mother gave me a dinner at a restaurant, we're going out tomorrow :)
The coolest thing though, was Brendan. He gave me a World of Warcraft t-shirt. Now that may not seem so amazing, but what was incredible about it was that he picked it himself while he was at the mall with Rosie's mom. He recognized it from when Rosie and I play, and picked it without help or suggestions from anyone, and paid for it himself with his own money! Pretty good going for a 7 year old kid, I was very impressed! :)
"Uncle Moe" and Danny (cousin... or so Rosie thinks at least. She's not sure)
Rosie's mom Elvira, Eva's boyfriend Eric AKA Crocodile Dundee, and Evira's sister "the aunt with the wig" - Chela
Sujata, Susie and Rosie
The card shark at work
Left to right: Eva, Danny, Jose, David, Elias, Jonathan (not me, if you hand't figured out. One of Rosie's cousins)
That was pretty much everything, I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as I did, it was a blast.
Merry Christmas and Happy New year everyone!
Ok, I wish I could have been home in Denmark for Christmas because it would have been great to be with you all - but still, I had a fantastic Christmas here! :)
It was nothing like our Christmas, that's for sure, but it was loads of fun!
We were supposed to be around 40 people all in all, but some people didn't show and some came and went. I think all in all we had around 25 people throughout the night, a more manageable amount. I was pretty happy with that, because this way I had a chance to learn most people's names and get to talk a bit to almost everyone.
The evening was divided between the two front houses of the property, remember there are 3 houses together, all owned by the family. First house is Rosie's cousin Betty's, 2nd is her tia and tio's (aunt and uncle) and last one is where we live, at her mother's. We had decorated our own Christmas tree at Rosie's mom's back in early December, with fake snow and everything. It was a terrible mess to do, and the tree foot was awful so the tree tipped over at one point, but the tree is gorgeous, in my opinion.
Since the tradition here is not live candles for one night, but electrical ones for a whole month, I asked if we had any fire blankets and fire extinguishers for electrical fires.
We didn't. The fire blanket had apparently been put away somewhere and her mom didn't have an extinguisher - in California! So Rosie and I insisted to get one before any lights were being plugged in, so we went and bought one at Home Depot.
The food
Well I knew we weren't going to have Danish Christmas food, but one thing I'd insisted on: Duck.
So Rosie and I had been all over La Puente, West Covina, Baldwin Park and the other towns of the area in search for one - no luck, no duck. All the stores had loads of chicken and turkey, but no duck. It was not until we found an Asian market near Rosie's mom's workplace that we lucked out - they had ONE duck. Head, feet and everything, but it was indeed a duck. The only problem was that although all signs were in English, the people behind the counter just looked slightly perplexed when we spoke to them. We asked for duck and he starts packing a chicken. It wasn't until Rosie started flapping her arms and saying QUACK QUACK that the message got through ^^ She used to have a pet duck (well 3 actually) so she does a very good "angry female duck" impersonation.
As for the stuffing, we'd both agreed that we didn't actually want it inside the duck, so I made it on the side. I had no clue how to do that, since I've never tried - I've only tasted what mom makes, but I did my best. A few apples and a bag of dried prunes, skinned, cut and cored the apples, and added a bit of water and steamed it all in a saucepan with a bit of salt and cinnamon (I know we don't normally use that, but I felt like it). When it was mushy, I added some of the fat from the roast duck, and fried it in that. Considering that was my first attempt at stuffing, it was surprisingly similar to what I'm used to so I had my duck and stuffing. The duck was good too, though it was Rosie's first attempt at duck roasting as well.
As for the rest...
I mentioned tamales, and those we had. I really like those actually, though they will never be Christmas food for me. The only problem is the smell of the boiled corn husks they're wrapped in, that is not nice. But once that's removed so you can eat the actual thing, it's quite good. I'm not much for the cheese ones, but the beef ones were great, and they'd been nice and made them white-boy friendly... no chili.
Tamales
I don't know if I've said this but Mexican food can be summed up in these 5 words: Corn, beans, chili, corn and more corn. EVERYTHING is made with corn - like their hot Christmas chocolate we got with the food. It was made on corn-water so it had a slightly thin slimy texture, with cinnamon, and was very very sweet. A little too sweet, even for me. It was nice, but I couldn't drink more than half a cup.
Then there was the soup.
It's called pozole and is made on pork bones and meat, with little hominy balls (made of, you guessed it, corn), chili and tomato mostly. The interesting thing about the soup is that it's served still with the bones in it, and with raw shredded white cabbage and sliced radishes on top, with a squeeze of lemon. I don't so much enjoy the concept with large bones still in my soup, but otherwise it was really good. The surprising thing was how much I liked it with the shredded cabbage. While it seemed out of place to look at, it really freshened it up in a pleasant way.
Pozole
Lastly there was tons of chips (crisps for you English types) and different cakes, including chocolate cakes and pumpkin pie. We still have 2 pies left over.
The food was served continuously over a period of a few hours, so people sort of just ate along the way when they felt like it. Nothing like the "we sit down and eat at 7, and wait for all to be seated" I'm used to from Christmases at home.
The games
The first thing we did was the Pinata. I didn't actually get to it before it was battered down, but it was fun to watch and film ;)
Brendan suffered a battle scar across the side of his face (a paper cut from the angry, battered Pinata), but will survive.
After the food, we moved to Betty's house and watched "National Lampoon: Christmas Vacation" (AKA Fars Fede Juleferie), while Eva made preparations for charades (one of Rosie's cousins, the one in the high heels battering the Pinata. She occasionally sounds exactly like Fran Dresher).
Then it was time for musical chairs. Rosie told me some horror stories about the viciousness of these people, so I had steeled myself for combat. As it turned out, the worst ones weren't there, so my aggressive charges won me the battle.
When people's butts were rested, the next game was on: Blind feeding. Two pairs were blindfolded in front of each other, one of each pair armed with a spoon and a chocolate pudding. Objective: To feed the other and finish the pudding first. Rosie and I were set to go on the last round, but apparently it got too messy so we moved on to charades before the turn got to us. Phew.
Charades was incredibly fun. No teams, everyone had a go and everyone guessed away. Danny got "give birth"... hilarity ensues.
The last game of the evening was insisted upon by the "elders"; Mexican bingo. It's exactly like the picture bingo we have in Denmark, only with Spanish writing (duh). It was actually really good for me, a good training in some of the words. As a result I am now fluent in Spanish! Assuming "fluent" means that I can say "boot, cactus, death, arrows and mermaid" with no grammar. Betty was merciless though, so I had to think fast if I wanted a chance to fill my card with hardly a second between each new one.
The presents
Most of the gifts were obviously for the children, but the adults had a Secret Santa arrangement, so each adult only gave one gift to one other, randomly picked. Alex, the guy I had gotten a gift for, wasn't there so that was a bit of a shame.
Rosie gave me some really cool World of Warcraft merchandise, including a Murloc plushie that goes "Mrglrglmrglmll" when you press it ^^ You'd have to be a WoW nerd to understand, but take my word for it - it's cool :D Rosie's mother gave me a dinner at a restaurant, we're going out tomorrow :)
The coolest thing though, was Brendan. He gave me a World of Warcraft t-shirt. Now that may not seem so amazing, but what was incredible about it was that he picked it himself while he was at the mall with Rosie's mom. He recognized it from when Rosie and I play, and picked it without help or suggestions from anyone, and paid for it himself with his own money! Pretty good going for a 7 year old kid, I was very impressed! :)
"Uncle Moe" and Danny (cousin... or so Rosie thinks at least. She's not sure)
Rosie's mom Elvira, Eva's boyfriend Eric AKA Crocodile Dundee, and Evira's sister "the aunt with the wig" - Chela
Sujata, Susie and Rosie
The card shark at work
Left to right: Eva, Danny, Jose, David, Elias, Jonathan (not me, if you hand't figured out. One of Rosie's cousins)
That was pretty much everything, I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as I did, it was a blast.
Merry Christmas and Happy New year everyone!
posted by Jonathan at
7:40 PM
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