Christmas and New Years...a bit tardy

This Christmas was great for many reasons. First, Drew and I did not have to travel. Since we had to work, my parents and brother came to us in Tucson. Second, we had the perfect Christmas tree. It had no gaps and was perfectly proportioned. Anyone who knows me, understands that I am obsessed with Christmas trees. I have been known to return a Christmas tree to the lot if it does not meet my rigorous standards. There will be no 'Charlie Brown Christmas tree' in my house. Here is a pic of our tree. Although it was perfect, I had to pay 80 bucks for it because we waited until December 19th to get our tree and most of the lots in town were already closed. The one remaining lot had jacked up the price of trees. Monopolies suck.

For Christmas Eve dinner we had a Mexican feast of tamales from St. Mary's and carne seca from El Charro. I managed to buy the last dozen tamales from St. Mary's on December 23rd. The place was packed because Christmas tamales are a tradition in Mexico and I think I pissed off a lot of people when I gleeful walked away with the last tamales. It probably did not help that when my number was called, I anounced that I was the "big winner".

For Christmas dinner, I made a turducken, as per my brother's request. For those of you that do not know, a turducken is a chicken stuffed in a duck, which is then stuffed in a turkey. The recipe requires that you debone all three fowl. I deboned the turkey first. It was easier than I was expecting thanks to Lisa's blog on making a chickham that includes pointers on deboning a chicken. One of the great things about this recipe is that there is a layer of stuffing between each of the birds, which affords the opportunity for 3 different types of stuffing. I put a traditional stuffing inside the chicken and between the duck and the turkey. Between the chicken and the duck, however, I put a cranberry pecan stuffing that turned out to be my favorite. The cranberries were a perfect compliment to the duck. The picture to the right shows the turducken just before I put it into the oven. You cannot even tell that besides the legs and wings on the turkey the entire thing is boneless, which allows it to be sliced right through the breast. Each slice contains all three types of meat and the different stuffings. My family and I managed to devour at least 2/3 of the 20 pounds of poultry over Christmas and the following days. It was awesome and I definatley plan to make it again. The genius of the turducken was that the duck fat made the turkey breast extra juicy and tender. So in addition to all of the goodies inside, the turkey by itself was the best I have ever eaten. After dinner, we continued to drink beer and wine and played trivial pursuit with our friends Jenne, Sean and Zaneta. My dad was on Jenne and Sean's team. Zaneta teamed up with my brother, and Drew and I made up the third team. We were savagely beaten by Jenne, Sean and my dad.

For New Year's Eve, Drew and I had some friends over the traditional boozin'. I politely requested that everyone wear cocktail attire becuase I felt like dressing up. All the women came through and I got to wear my bride's maid dress from [M]'s wedding.

Here is our friend Melinda with her boyfriend. She came back from California early so she could join us for New Years and wear her new sexy red dress.Here are our friends Jenne and Sean, who also joined us for Christmas dinner. They are my favorite vegans and Jenne is one of running buddies and teammate from the Tucson marathon relay. Zaneta brought a tradional Czechoslovakian dish that was beautiful and really good for people like me that love eggs. Scout also liked it and snuck away with one when we were not looking.
Here is a pic of our buddy Zaneta (right) talking with our friend Bevin (left) who is also married to Drew's best man in our wedding. All in all it was a good holiday and I did not get out of bed on New Year's day at all, which is either a really good sign or a really bad sign depending on your perspective.