(Un)Christmas 2010--the good news

Christmas Eve, for all its strandedness, turned out pretty well. The flatmate and I had exactly three plans for the day: baking cookies, going to church and a nice dinner. Amazingly, given the week that was (and what was to come) things went off without a hitch.

First, the baking. Those of you who have travelled to Europe may already be aware of this, but chocolate chips cost like £100 a gram here. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is true that a bag of Tollhouse chips is roughly equal in value to a third-born daughter. Since neither of us have daughters in any order (and child-stealing at Christmas seems to be slightly lacking in good taste and festive cheer), the flatmate and I elected to buy some Cadbury Dairymilk bars and just smash the shit out of them. Then, frustration vented (oh, if only I had known...), cookies were made. Oh, and also a cherry pie. We repeated our uber-classy "get drunk on cheap wine and use the bottle as a rolling pin" method for preparing the crust. The secret is in the drunkenness.

Sweet cherry pie. That's inappropriate.

I ate this many.

Then, on to church! We elected to try St. Giles, which is absolutely beautiful, a Catholic cathedral until, as the Catholic flatmate puts it, "that troublemaker John Knox got to it."

 
Now, visual interest aside, it is solidly Presbyterian and emphatically Scottish. The goals of the service were pedantically clear, as laid out by the minister in lieu of a traditional welcome: "Taenight, we arrr gang tae hear o' thae birrrth of thae wee babbie Jesus, an' sing sam songs, an' we arrr gang tae say sam prrrrayerrrs." He was as good as his word, and we were out of there in thirty minutes, full o' thae mirrrracle o' thae Laird, and ready for dinner.

The flatmate and I had found the Montpelier Bistro while buying cookie supplies, and they fit us in for dinner. It was so good! We shared moules in beurre sauce for an appetizer, then I had lamb with parsnip and prosciutto mash and french beans...mmmmmmmmmm. Flatmate had the special, which was salmon. Whatever.

Haha, it looks like I have kind of wackadoo halo. That's funny if you know me. Also, it's funny because God apparently HATES MY GUTS (see next post).

Pretty flatmate.

MOULES!

LAMB!

Salmon. Whatever.

 It was a very classy place, and the service was really good (our order was delayed a bit, but the waitress apologized and comped our drinks, so we both got nicely tipsy while waiting...very good job, Montpelier). They also have an intriguing cocktail menu, so I think we'll be back in the new year.

After that, it was home to bed, as I had to get up early for my flight. And that's when everything went epically, tragically, heartbreakingly wrong. Please stay tuned for "(Un)Christmas 2010--the bad news," in which I recount how I spent the day alone in a Holiday (ironic!) Inn with snot running down my face, just like the wee babbie Chrrrrrist (almost).