Funny festive feast

On Saturday Mas was feeling rather depressed and end of yearish, but we did our usual things and tried to have a reasonable day in spite of this, and watched something on TV in the evening.

Today, Sunday, we went to Tania and Robert's home at midday, as we had been invited for lunch together with some relatives and friends; in total there was nine of us. The weather was cold and bright, and when we arrived we joined the others and had some welcome mulled wine and mince pies. We all chatted while we waited for the Christmas dinner to be served; Tania's relatives were laughing a lot, and we soon found out why.

Apparently Tania had bought such a huge turkey that it would not fit into her oven, as she also wanted to roast some vegetables. Seeing the dilemma, Tania had secretly dug a huge hole in the garden the previous day, as you do, and put in some charcoal.

Today she slipped out of bed before Robert was awake, so avoiding inevitable criticism. She then set fire to the charcoal and placed the turkey into the hole and covering it carefully, and filled in the hole with earth again. The relatives kept asking Tania to open it up, to see how it was going, but as Tania pointed out it would let all the heat out. I was shown the site where the turkey was planted, and a thin trickle of smoke or steam was rising from the soil. There were many jokes about the turkey having the Last Rites, and people tapping their watches and laughing. The smoke alarm went off twice, adding to the hilarity. Eventually Tania dug up the turkey, only to find that it had not really cooked all through; one of the friends gave an imitation of how the turkey looked. As a precaution Tania had also cooked a small turkey without legs, and diner was soon served with all the festive fixings to go with it, and was delicious.

After this Tania bought in a traditional Christmas pudding, complaining that it would not catch fire as she had poured lots of rum on it (more laughter), and then a cheese cake with chopped fresh fruit in it; when asked what the fruit was, Tania replied that it was fresh piss, being unsure of the pronunciation, which caused another burst of laughter. Thinking about this later I suspect it was Persimmon, or Sharon fruit. Then to top this, a meringue was bought in with pomegranate and passion fruit sprinkled on top of it! At this point it would have been impossible to eat anything else, and we did not need the big turkey!

When sitting down later we had some champagne and Tania showed us the small winter hats that she had been knitting, most too small for a human head, and, by this time all restraint had
gone, and a new crop of jokes was produced with more laughter.

I think Tania is one of the most generous people I know, and she was joining in with the laughter too. I don't think I have ever been to a meal where everyone had so much to laugh about before, and I am sure none of us will forget it.