Glorious boxing day...
In my younger years boxing day meant waking up early to play with all the toys we'd received, while parentals recover from the day before.
The past few years have meant recovering from the day before but not because of alcohol, but because of a food hangover lol.
For 27 years of my life Xmas had been the traditional roasts/smoked turkey with roasted veg, Yorkshire puddings and trifle, then I met my husband and my family relocated overseas and we started doing Xmas lunch with his fam.
You're probably thinking, she's Muslim, why's she celebrating Xmas. Well, a little insight, if you hadn't guessed by now, I'm a revert, embraced Islam 12 years ago, my family does Xmas for the gifts and presents and to drink and be merry. As for my husband, half of his siblings are Christian and half Muslim, and his mother was muslim and then converted back to Christianity.
Anywho.... So Xmas in the Cape coloured style is not just the traditional roasts....
Today I am recovering from a menu of
Roast lamb, seafood paella, seafood pasta, prawn curry, steak pie, chicken pie, sticky chicken and butter chicken.
And ofcourse there was trifle, 2 of them, along with 5 other different kinds of pudding 🙈
My first time I had Xmas lunch with them I had no idea of the day ahead and obviously had breakfast before going through. I'm a breakfast person, my day just won't function without it. But I've learnt that you simply don't do breakfast when visiting my in laws for Xmas lunch because as my mother in law says, "It's a Christmas feast"
So after having had only coffee and listening to my tummy grumble for hours, lunch was finally served at 3pm.
My stomach could not handle eating of every single dish as by now it shrank, so in traditional coloured style, my mother in law packed in "padkos" for us to take home, ice cream tubs filled with every dish. (This is something that would never happen at my dad's house, he would always say no take aways, although I always got to take SOMETHING home lol)
So this morning, 7am, I lay here, in silence, not even thinking about food, but so grateful that I don't need to make anything for today and most likely tomorrow. Today I will play with my kids toys, because apparently adults don't get toys anymore 🤷 and I don't need to spend the day making food, I will just get to dish them out of the tubs and onto our plates.
Hope you all had a joyous, Merry Christmas.
Picture not my own, recovered from my Facebook memories, and have no idea where it originally came from