James Proclaims!

As I write this, some potatoes are roasting in my oven. They are basking contently in olive oil, garlic and rosemary. I’m quietly confident they will be delicious in about 45 minutes from now. At various points I will need to pop a few vegetables into the oven to keep them company on their journey to the plates of the Proclaims family. Oh and a massive side of salmon that could feed about 8 large people but will only need to feed one large person and three small people. Mrs Proclaims is fairly diminutive in stature and my daughters are still very much small children.

The all like a roast potato though.

And they all like salmon.

Which is good, because there will be quite a lot of both.

I could have purchased a smaller portion of salmon, but such are the supermarket deals in the festive build-up that it was more economical to buy too much fish than an appropriate amount. Fortunately I’m a big fan of festive leftovers so the excess will form the basis of a fair few sandwiches over the coming days.

Little Proclaims has already stated that she will not eat sprouts. Mini Proclaims has not voiced any objections but will be rather more physical in her protestations towards unwanted vegetables when faced with them on her plate and may hurl them directly at my head if I misjudge her requirements.

There is no turkey because Mrs Proclaims is the kind of strange vegetarian that refuses to eat meat but will happily eat fish. A pescatarian some might say. A pesky-tarian if you have to cater for her though.

I don’t mind this state of affairs. We’ve been together so long that having salmon for Christmas dinner is now as much of a tradition for me as turkey ever was. It’s a bonus that both of my children like it too. I think they would be open to turkey but they really do seem to like salmon and, given the tendency of small children to reject healthy food, if they are prepared to eat salmon, I am happy to provide it.

Prior to lunch, the day has mainly been devoted to the unwrapping of presents. Little Proclaims is quite good at this, and once she’d raced through her own selection of plastic unicorns, she was quite happy (and indeed quite insistent on) helping other family members to unwrap their presents. In our early days of parenthood, we used to try and eke out the present unwrapping, but Little Proclaims finds the idea of an un-unwrapped present offensive to her personal beliefs. And she can be quite loud and annoying so like all good parents, we bow to her demands and commercialist sensibilities on Christmas morning.

Mini Proclaims seems quite pleased with her gifts, but is more circumspect about the whole thing, and is frankly just as happy with the wrapping paper as the toys contained therein.

Mini Proclaims is now napping. Little Proclaims is watching TV. Mrs Proclaims is pretending to work on her PhD while actually browsing the post-Christmas sales online and I am cooking dinner.

I like cooking Christmas dinner, but I am not doing it for altruistic reasons. I’m mainly doing it because I really like eating Christmas dinner and I’m quite good at cooking. I’m not sure if I’m good at cooking because I like eating. It could be a chicken and an egg situation but as I’m cooking neither chicken nor eggs I wouldn’t wish to speculate.

I have not yet consumed any alcohol, but there is a bottle of sparkling wine chilling in the fridge and I plan to be mildly inebriated for most of the rest of the day.

We may attempt some kind of post-lunch walk. It sounds quite pleasant in principle but a combination of uncooperative children and indigestion may make it less than joyful.

I expect there will be chocolates at some point. Indeed there have already been quite a lot of chocolates.

As a parent I do think it’s important to teach my children the true meaning of Christmas. Which I’m quite sure is over-indulgence and rampant commercialism.

So wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas and planning to be slightly fatter tomorrow.