I have that on bloody WhatsApp now. I mean, even my 70 y.o. aunt is constantly sending me tons of pictures of her nephews and nieces (4 in total, so you can imagine..), her home grown tomatoes, vineyard, church and hens.... She moved to the country side and has plenty of time..God forbid that the "oldies" discover technology!

thread needs bumping!
i can't believe it's dec 21...always feels unchrismassy when in in tropics...
makes me miss xmas back in switzerland...
pls share your swiss xmas preparations here please...

EE is ready😉

4 course Menu for 25th is planned and shopped/ordered for, some stuff already prepped in now waiting the freezer.

We won't exchange individual gifts, since we are quite a large family now. The Pirate and I have made vouchers for a Summer Party at our place instead.
I made choccie fudge and other 'foodie' gifts, which will accompany said vouchers.

All that remains is setting up and decorating the tree and then on 25th setting the table early am and later cookery galore😉😉for EE until the guests arrive at 5pm.

I'll enjoy every second of it.

We only celebrate with my side, Pirate celebrates w/o me with his kids.

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Voluntary SWISS shoe -horn to Expats since 1999, do I get a medal now?

what's for dinner on 25th? or 24th? I am assimilated and will celebrate the "feast" on 24th eve (the swiss way)

Apero with fizz and various (home made) salty bricelets (Brätzeli)
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Thurgovian cider soup

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Lambs salad with egg, lardons, toasted nuts

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Marinated pot roast (Suure Mocke) & its gravy
Fresh mash with black truffle dices
Selection of vegetables

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Home made ice cream torte

xmouse cookies courtesy of my mum and kid#2
Variety of choccie fudges

Just ain't Christmas with out snow.

True. As I don't do Christmas all I want is the snow. Been let down on that for years.

Thurgovian cider soup ... Thurgovia sounds so much better than "Mostindien". But the dish discloses the true roots.
Nice menue, EE.

thurgau is my in laws canton so yes cider soup sounds great! i also like weinsuppe

For past couple of days, my father incessantly makes me listen to the forwarded-by-a-thousand-folks Christmas carols on Messenger and whole WhatsApp world suddenly has revived this festive season. They all learnt how to use smart phones between age 10 to 75 and demonstrate it on every possible occasion

Well, without that technology driven attention from folks, the life would have been considerably more boring.

I defrosted the fridge this morning and there was plenty of it. Good substitute for fervent snowholics!

Naaa, not enough for a decent snowball fight. Maybe with an American fridge.

Snowball fight has been eliminated from my ice-age instincts.

Haha, I hear you! I also got Christmas carols! You're right, life would be much more boring without these things. Enjoy the genuine feelings and thoughts behind the messaging and sharing. Makes people feel closer.

...and this year it'll be a different affair than before, for many of us!

How are you going to celebrate this year?

I really went out of my way with planning our few hours together and tried to heed (almost) all the regulations from the governement.

Everyonbe of my family has, as good as they could, been self quarantining for the last 10 days to allow us to come together.
I already shopped for everything required a fortnight ago
and only ventured out to walk the dog.

Yesterday the house has been cleaned from top to bottom extremely thorough and on 25th December, the ground floor will be cleaned again and stuff like door handles, light switches etc disinfected again.....

Instead of individual gifts we opted for a money pot where everyone paid at least 20.- into.

This formed the budget to shop for ingredients for me for our meal = 5 courses, but for once with lots of cheating (convenience) food items and not everything made from scratch by my fair hands, as usual.

We won't have a tree indoors as before, instead we decorated the big maple tree in our garden, clearly visible from both places we'll be sitting at.

The family will be separated, 5 will be eating indoors, the 5 in the conservatory

Other than that, I will apply the same rules that were valid for restaurants.....


Of course I DO KNOW that the safest option would be to not do anything at all. My family discussed together what we would like to do and are happy with our compromise.

__________________
Voluntary SWISS shoe -horn to Expats since 1999, do I get a medal now?

The family is scattered all over the globe, so the annual pilgrimage home is not in the cards this year. Hopefully we can celebrate in the summer, once everyone is vaccinated and we can travel to be together.

Christmas in July (à la Auntie Mame) should be fun.


As much as I miss the traditional gathering of the clan, I'm actually looking forward to a quiet day in front of the fire with a nice bottle of something.

And there's a chance of snow on Christmas, so fingers crossed...