Hello hello! Can you believe Christmas is just THREE DAYS AWAY? This bizarre year seems to have gone by both at a snail's pace but also at breakneck speed. Phew. I just realised I never blogged Christmas 2020, and desperately want to blog it now. I obviously posted all about it on Instagram and Instagram Stories, but I really felt the need to record it properly here on ye olde blog. I'm always on Instagram and genuinely love using it like a food diary, and sharing those "slice of life" type posts that used to be a mainstay of old-school food blogging. However, for me things aren't really official unless they're on the blog! And I figure that in years to come I'll want to look back and see what I did in Christmas 2020. So here we go!

So, December 2020. Melbourne was coming out of its long second lockdown and enjoying extremely low COVID cases and many donut days - with no idea that Delta and four further lockdowns were lurking around the corner. The weather was warm, we were tentatively catching up with friends and family again and life was good! It was also our first Christmas with little Maya, and even though she was too little to remember it, we wanted to make it special.

We got these cute Christmas decorations from Target, which I loved because they're teeny tiny German Christmas market stalls!

Christmas decorations

A little sweet stall!

I baked quite a few Christmas cookies - Nußmakronen, Vanillekipferl, Spekulatius, and even some baby-friendly teething biscuits using the pretty moulds that my sister-in-law sent us from Germany. 

Baby-friendly banana teething biscuits

Spekulatius

Vanillekipferl, Nussmakronen

And here's my first Bunter Teller!

Bunter Teller

I bought my first panettone - a cute little mini-Galup brand one. Delicious!

Galup Panettone

Sisko Chocolate Trees

Phillippa's Stollen

We were still too nervous to go out and do a lot of social stuff, (and tired with the baby), but I wanted to do some special Christmas activities at home, so the Sunday before Christmas I did a little German Christmas market day and served Christmas market food at each meal! We had waffles and whipped cream for breakfast, Kartoffelpuffer and soup for lunch, and Glühwein and Bratwurst for dinner. Actually cute and fun and delicious! (You can read about my most recent visits to German Christmas markets back in 2018, I miss them so much!)

Dinner: Bratwurst im Brötchen with Sauerkraut

Glühwein - mandatory

Lunch: Kartoffelpuffer with chicken soup, apple sauce, crème fraiche and chives

Breakfast: Waffles!

We also bought a Christmas gift box of Reed avocados from Barham Avocados. Treat yoself!

Barham avocados

Here's a random Christmassy hot chocolate in an old Glühwein mug.

Hot chocolate

On Christmas Eve, we had a regular dinner at home (actually totes delicious delivery from Malay Kitchen), and followed it with a little chocolate cherry pavlova. So festive! (It was a reduced-quantity version of Nigella's chocolate raspberry pavlova from Forever Summer, with cherries instead of raspberries).

Chocolate cherry pavlova

For Christmas day, I pushed out the boat and made a huge Roasted Peach and Custard Trifle for dessert. In the lead-up to Christmas, Nat from Beatrix posted some Christmas ideas on her Instagram stories using the recipes from her book. This one comprised layers of sponge cake, custard, pink sparkling wine jelly, roast peaches and whipped cream. She suggested adding amaretti for a textural component but I can't stand them, so I substituted my homemade spekulatius. It was so good and so festive!

Roasted peach and custard trifle

Of course, Christmas lunch needs savoury food too. We had lunch with my parents, and Sandra and I made a ham, potato gratin and red cabbage, which we served with apple sauce and a little mustard. 

Christmas lunch

I was lucky enough to receive some lovely foodie presents - including a magnificent Dolce & Gabbana chestnut and chocolate panettone, some gorgeous ceramics made by local artist Yen Qin (also a friend of mine), and some delicious Christmassy Koko Black chocolates. (My fave local chocolate pralines!)

Christmas gifts

Check out the panettone! So delicious, so beautiful! They're expensive but worth an occasional splurge!

Dolce and Gabbana Choc Chestnut panettone

There were lots of Christmas leftovers. Lots! Dad somehow bought the biggest ham imaginable, and there was much hammy deliciousness over the next few days.

Top: Ham slices dusted in mustard powder and fried in bread roll; Ploughman's Bottom: Ham & cheese baguette; Pasta with ham, cream & peas

And once the panettone started to go stale, I made Nigella's Italian Christmas pudding cake and her Panettone French toast (both recipes from Nigellissima).

Italian Christmas Pudding Cake

Panettone French Toast

And I'll just sneak this New Years' Eve photo in here as well. Sandra and I were exhausted and wanted to stay home, but to keep it feeling like an occasion, I made NYE-celebration appropriate food for us to eat for dinner. We had cheese cubes and grape canapés, bread rolls, pão de queijo (store bought), devilled eggs, and scarlet prawns and a lobster tail with burnt butter lemon garlic sauce. Hilariously, I'd bought champagne but was too exhausted to open it on NYE, so I had a sneaky mimosa with lunch on New Year's Day itself.

New Year's Eve meal

So that was Christmas 2020! At the time I felt that the celebrations were restrained, but looking back I can see there were lots of very fun and special moments! I hope that life is treating you well and that you're keeping safe, and that the festive season is looking good for you, even if it's different to years gone by.