Ah, the traditional Christmas dinner: the Victorian picture-perfect roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, a token spoonful of overcooked peas, followed by the flaming steamed Christmas pudding served up with hard sauce, all dished up midday (or later, depending on the organizational skills of the perpetrator/host.)
Not for us. We snacked our way through the morning, mostly on chocolate, since that what Santa put in our stockings (isn't he smart?). Then this evening, I threw together a pot of coq au vin (lovely, melted onions and leeks, thyme and marjoram, bacon and chicken thighs, and the remainders of two bottles of red wine), some potatoes and Brussels sprouts. This wintery menu, with its roots and kale family seems imminently appropriate to the season, and has special meaning for us. When we decided to wed, we were living in Germany as graduate students. The discussion between equals went something like this: "Let's get married." (Already adept at reading his mind, I could tell he really meant, 'Let's go down to the town hall and be done with it in fifteen minutes') "I would only feel married if we wed in a church." "The only church I would consider would be the cathedral in Bourges." "Okay." That short exchange defined the wedding: it was ours, not our families'--they all lived at least 12 hours away (by car for his; by plane for mine), so we made the decisions. When my husband-to-be said, "I'd like to have a wedding dinner at a cozy inn in the French countryside," I said, "Let's go find one!" When we finally found the right one (after truly exhaustive and inebriating research), the rustic supper that she suggested sounded right for a sure-to-be chilly March evening. A salad of pâté de campagne and avocado, potato pastries, trou berrichon, coq en barbouille (coq au vin thickened with the blood of the chicken in question), all washed down with local wine, Menetou-Salon. The wedding cake also departed from tradition, as I eschewed the showy pièce montée for a homely but rich chocolate decadence cake. A wedding menu of our own, for a wedding on our own terms.
So, this Christmas, we celebrated the season, the bounty of the local harvest (did I mention the food was all local?) and life on our own terms, as we stayed home rather than cave to the requests of family to be present for them.
We did not celebrate traditionally. We'll save that for another time.
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