Sunday 14 December 2014

At Christmas we... Buy Cranberry Sauce

the eldest and youngest with their Granny. She has her coffee mug in her hand
and will soon be lighting up the first cigarette. 
At Christmas we.... Always have cranberry sauce to go with the turkey. We buy a jar weeks before and put it in the pantry - or sometimes we put it in the fridge.
Christmas day dawns and we open presents put the turkey in the oven and get the vegetables on the go. Eventually we sit down to eat and we all enjoy our dinner, pulling crackers and wearing silly hats ( perhaps I'll tell the tale of Hannah and the paper hat one day, although without the physical actions it loses a little...). We doze in front of the TV for a while and then play silly games until the small ones collapse in tears of exhaustion.

Some time in the days that follow one of us will go to the pantry or the fridge and move something. "Oh look," we'll say "A jar of cranberry sauce, weren't we meant to have that with the turkey?" then we'll laugh and it will get forgotten until November when we scrape out the contants into the food recycling bin and wash the jar and put it in the glass recycling box and the next time we go shopping we say "Don't forget the cranberry sauce for the turkey".
This is a tradition now, it has to be as we have been performing the ritual every year for the last 34 Christmasses.

This has been written in response to the idea of a Christmas Story Club devised by Sian at FromHighInTheSky. Why not take a look at the other stories now that you've read mine?


8 comments:

Becky said...

This did make me laugh as I have just put cranberry sauce on our shopping list! I am the only one who eats it, so one teaspoon gets taken out and then it gets put back in the fridge until the middle of summer when I find it and it all gets scraped out and the jar goes to recycling! Hope you remember yours this year!

Sian said...

Ha! You have reminded me that I need to buy the annual jar of cranberry sauce for the one person in our house who likes it and I'm smiling at the thought of other households with left over jars too. Are we in the grip of a mass delusion? Does most of the world actually loathe the stuff and won't admit it? You raise a good point :)

ally said...

That dos make me laugh, it has happened many times in my house

Fiona@Staring at the Sea said...

How funny! Not something that ever features on my Christmas shopping list or menu. I do have a jar of cranberry and orange marmalade, made by a friend, for one of the Christmas hampers I'm giving though.

Anonymous said...

Oh, how funny: the exact same happened in my Mum and Dad's home! Every single year! And the funniest bit? I don't remember that any of us actually even liked it?!?

Miriam said...

Oh I'm the odd one so far. I buy a jar of ordinarie, a jar of posh and I make a jar and it all gets eaten! Family traditions, I love to hear about them.

Missus Wookie said...

Ah - my MIL to be bought a jar for me and put it on the table the Christmas I spent at her's (was working and couldn't get home) she wasn't impressed that I didn't like it...

I've made it too (tis v simple) and Wookie will eat it with cold meats so it does go here. But I still don't eat it.

Anonymous said...

LOL - oh this brought back great memories of my Mum. With her it wasn't the cranberry sauce but it always the pickle plate/tray. As for cranberry sauce, I make my own the day before so it doesn't get forgotten.