YouTube has these videos about the weirdness of the week between Christmas and New Year’s—that time when it gets particularly hard to remember what day of the week it is and you find yourself subsisting mostly on decadent leftovers. For example:
Being retired also brings with a certain amount of having to work to remember what day of the week it is anyway, and I can confirm that this is only gets worse the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when whatever usual weekly activities you have set up are often cancelled or moved. So that the week did feel a bit “off” wasn’t too surprising.
What I hadn’t expected was the way that Christmas Day itself really snuck up on me. In my working times, I’d typically have the week between Christmas and New Year’s off, and usually a few days before Christmas, too. And I would plan ahead for that. What am I going to cook when. What events will I attend. What back burner projects will I move onto that front burner.
But now… Well… That’s closer to what my life is generally like so I didn’t need all these “special” plans. But, I did still want to do a Christmas dinner and maybe a few other event? And I didn’t want to be grocery shopping on Christmas Eve, and events weren’t going to plan themselves. I had to get on it.
But, let’s back track a bit. In recent years we have not gone to Timmins for Christmas itself, initially because of Covid restrictions, and then because of Jean’s inability to get sufficient days off then. This year, neither of those were especially a factor, so it was a matter of, when did we want to go?
We chose early December again, because:
- That allowed us to be there for Dad’s 90th birthday, which was nice.
- It is a less hectic and, often, more weather-friendly time to travel.
- It’s easier to get a catsitter.
- Jean can more easily meet with his immediate family, as they aren’t all busy celebrating with their children and grandchildren.
We drove, but we made it a bit more of a leisurely journey this year, with stops in the Sudbury area on the way up and back. On both Sudbury stops, we did some hiking. On one we stayed in a hotel and on the other we stayed with Jean’s sister. In Timmins, we did some cross-country skiing, despite having forgotten our ski boots, thanks to borrowing and rentals. We also saw our old friends, and obviously, spent time with family.
And the drives went well, except for a fairly intense but not widespread storm around Barrie on the final drive back.
On December 18 we went to see a live student production of Something Rotten, Jr. It’s not Christmassy at all, but we had enjoyed the adult production of this musical at Stratford last year, so we thought we’d see how these high schoolers managed with this scaled-down production.
It was an entertaining night out. The musical is about two brothers, playwrights, who are frustrated trying to compete with their contemporary, Shakespeare. So they get some help from Nostradamus to find out what the next big thing in live theatre will be, and learn that it’s the musical. Some of these teenagers were pretty talented; in particular, the non-binary lead, who had a great voice, and the charismatic young woman who played Shakespeare.
And finally, I to do something about Christmas dinner and Christmas week. For the dinner, we invited one (1) friend over. And I sat down with various cookbooks, and came up with the following menu:
To start
Bupkus. I totally forgot about providing any sort of snack or appetizer. But we did open a bottle of Ontario sparkling wine in the Champagne style to sip while prepping food.
Main course and sides
- Roasted duck with tangerine-hoisin glaze
- Brown sugar and mustard roast chicken pieces
- Mashed potato and cauliflower
- Roasted Brussels sprouts with apples
- Green salad with walnuts and pears
Wines: An Ontario Pinot Noir/Syrah blend as the red, and an Italian white wine blend
Dessert
Flourless Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake, served with an Ontario Sherry.
I made the cake a day ahead, and the duck was partly prepped then also (rubbed with spices and left to marinate for a day). But to get through the rest, with the goal of having everything ready by around 6:30, I made a plan. Which I just have to share.
| 3:30 | Prep duck and preheat oven |
| 3:40 | Put duck in oven at 325 |
| 3:45 | Prep walnuts, dressing, pear, and lettuce for salad |
| 4:55 | Flip duck and cook til it reaches 175 F |
| 5:00 | Prep the potatoes and cauliflower for later cooking |
| 5:15 | Prepare the Brussels sprouts |
| 5:35 | Prepare the glaze for the chicken (double the recipe) |
| 5:40 to 5:55 | Take the duck out and glaze it; increase oven temperature |
| 5:45 | Put chicken pieces in to bake (in theory at 375, but use duck temperature until it’s done) |
| 5:50 | Preheat toaster oven for Brussels sprouts |
| 5:50 | Heat the Instant Pot with potatoes and cauliflower |
| 6:00 | Put the duck in the oven at higher temp, basting once |
| 6:00 | Put Brussels sprouts in the toaster oven |
| 6:00 | Assemble salad |
| 6:10 | Take duck out and let sit |
| 6:15 | Duck ready for carving |
| 6:15 to 6:20 | When Instant Pot done, add ingredients and mash |
| 6:25 | Take Brussels sprouts out of toaster oven when done |
| Somewhere in there | Set the table Open wine bottles Slice some bread |
Thing is, it pretty much worked out as planned! That was thanks to getting help from both husband and guest, particularly for those times when three things had to be done at once.
And it was all pretty tasty. The duck was large enough that we didn’t really need the chicken—but it’s OK to have chicken leftover. The duck also had a slightly weird colour, because the only form of orange liqueur I had for the glaze was blue curacao, which is very blue. (We should really have taken a photo, but didn’t.) All the sides were good, though it was a bit more salad than needed. As for dessert, it’s hard to go wrong with sugar, chocolate, and cream cheese (vegan).
Which brings to the “between” week. On Boxing Day, we forego-d the traditional shopping, but did have tickets to non-Christmas musical concert: Rock Favorites on Strings, featuring a string quartet performing rock songs. The weather that day was awful—lots of snow and freezing rain—and after looking up how easy it was to do, we decided to take city transit (bus, then Ion light rail) to the venue instead of driving.
Only… Just as we were about to head out, I noticed the email telling me that the concert had been cancelled. I assume that was because the musicians weren’t able to make it into town due to weather . We now have a credit on our account, and a choice between seeing them play Coldplay tunes or Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
I’m going to have to give that some thought.
The morning of December 27 was the McNair family gift exchange! It landed on this date to maximize the number of people who could participate in person in Timmins, with Jean and I and another sister and her husband participating over Zoom. Albeit virtual for us, it’s still nice to see everyone at Christmas time. I received new ear buds and a donation to the cat shelter I volunteer at (something I did that very night, actually).
The day after we had a reservation to go to Langdon Hall’s Winter House with some friends for an early dinner, but again, the weather… Transit to Cambridge isn’t quite as easy as downtown Kitchener, and with rain changing to freezing rain that day, driving was not good. So we decided to switch it for a reservation the following night.
Which was also a pretty stormy day, but by the evening it had calmed enough that with slow-ish driving, it was doable. This was a true Winter House experience, though! This is an outdoor restaurant that they surround with tarp and outfit with heaters. But snow had drifted in under our seats, and at times the tarp was entirely lifted by the wind. Some years we’re able to take our coats off. Not this year.
It was very nice to see our friends, and we enjoyed the food and warm drinks, with the “sober” cider being a popular pick. We all glommed onto the heartier, warmer dishes: lamb ragu (a highlight), beef poutine, fish and chips. And we all ended up too full for dessert.
New Year’s beckons. We hope to ski tomorrow, Jean is canoeing (yes!) on what looks like a chilly New Year’s Day, and that night I’ll probably help out with the kitties at the shelter again.
Here’s wishing everyone a good 2026.
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