It’s been a long time since I’ve been back to the island in winter, but this year I spent Christmas with my family. This meant snow, toutons, pease pudding, swearing and everything else that comes with being around my family.

There was a pre-Christmas meal with my Nan. As expected, she complained about the look of the turkey, even though it tasted great. When Nan cooks there’s always something that doesn’t turn out looking good – and no matter how good it tastes, she complains forever about the look.  I am unsure if this is just her habit or if other people do this.

And then Nan makes sure that you’ve eaten enough food. For example, when I said I’d like 1 slice of toast and she put 3 slices in the toaster oven for me. Her reason? the oven only fit 3, so she couldn’t put in more. 

Not that I mind food, mind you. For the 2 Christmas dinners I had, there was salt beef, pease pudding, dressing, and all the good stuff that I can’t seem to find off the island (or at least find cheap).  There were toutons for breakfast (something I’ve been craving).  Plus, my sister makes a mean sticky toffee pudding.

Being home meant that I had access to cable, which meant a Doctor Who marathon on Christmas Day. I’m behind on Season 7, see, so I got to watch the first 5 episodes and the Christmas Special. And I got to catch up on The Big Bang Theory.  There was also the ritual watching of “Die Hard“ (although we didn’t get to “Die Harder“).

Another tradition includes putting together a puzzle. Or two. Or three.  Or possibly four, but you don’t really count the fourth one because you never worked that hard on it – I mean you did the outside and put a fence together, but not much else.

So it was a quiet Christmas at home, but it was full of all the things I like.  It was a nice reminder that sometimes there’s really no place like home.