The Life and Travels of Mrs Suvi

Wow, we’ve come to this year’s last Weekly Favourites post. Soon it will be 2017! But let’s first take a look at how Christmas went.

I was surprisingly calm when it came to Christmas Eve even though I was hosting the whole thing. My father-in-law, brother-in-law and my mother came over for a Christmas dinner. And what a dinner! It took hours.

I’m usually not into table settings but this time I had fun playing with it. I had a bit of an obsession to get red tulips and also eucalyptus branches to lay on the plates.

Christmas Eve morning started with a hearty breakfast, some rice porridge with cinnamon and sugar on top. Smoothies for those who cannot stand any kind of porridge. And of course Christmas cartoons. Unfortunately after that our daughter’s boyfriend left as he went to spend Christmas with his family. The guests arrived around 4 pm.

We started off with some rye bread crisps filled with smoked reindeer in a creme fraiche/horseradish mixture. Yum! With some Prosecco or Pommac (a soft drink).

Then, the starters – a salad, potatoes, three different kinds of salmon, three different kinds of roe and some herring. The roe is eaten with onion and sour cream. Oh let’s not forget my mom’s Karelian pastries with egg-butter.

Next up – the warm dishes plus ham and turkey. We had four different casseroles – carrot, potato, turnip and corn. The corn casserole was a first for us and it won hands down! Corn casserole is not usually seen in the Finnish Christmas table but I’d heard it was good and decided to try it. We will definitely have it every year from now on! After this I forgot to take any photos of the food – we had a huge cheese platter, chocolates, marmalades, gingerbread cookies and a gingerbread-lingonberry cake. Phew!

Christmas means presents in our family. There were so many of them too. It’s tradition that they are first given out to everyone and then we open them one by one, so everyone gets to see each other’s presents and appreciate them. Next year I’m going to suggest a Secret Santa though, although I don’t think the kids will be into it, LOL! For the adults, it’s something to consider though.

Nevertheless, Christmas Eve was a great affair. Christmas Day is much more relaxed at our house – this year we ate leftovers and watched some movies. Daughter’s boyfriend also joined us, as did my brother-in-law.

On Christmas Day I tried a spin-off of Banoffee – gingerbread cookies, caramelised milk, whipped cream and lingonberries. I must say it was way too sweet, so I won’t be trying it again. I also prepared some crayfish sandwiches which were divine.

Some of you may have noticed my blog post on Nokkalan Majakka. It’s a new restaurant in Espoo which just opened this week. My mom and I went for a visit on its’ very first day.

It was lovely sitting inside in the warmth knowing the weather was harsh (but sunny) outside. We had a great visit and I can’t wait to go again!

Other than Christmas, this week has been all about movies! I’ve seen three in total. Of these, my favourite was Collateral Beauty. I almost cried all through it. The other two were Passengers in 3D and Arrival and I’m not going to rave about either one. So if there’s one movie you’re going to watch it should be Collateral Beauty. Let me know after what you thought of it. Seeing all these movies meant too much candy and popcorn!

I also managed to go aqua jogging twice which is a good start considering the  upcoming New Year and my resolution to exercise more!

How was Christmas for you? Do you have any interesting plans for welcoming the New Year? Happy New Year – Hyvää Uutta Vuotta to you all and I hope we meet again in 2017.

xx