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Post by Bean on Dec 10, 2019 8:45:31 GMT
You can get ones that don't drop many needles now, but they don't tend to smell the same, and that pine scent is one of the main reasons I love real Christmas trees! We always had a real one when I was a kid, and I remember it being a source of amusement to see how late in the year we would be discovering random stray pine needles in nooks and crannies!
Glad you're seeing the family on Christmas Eve, 3piggles. The feast sounds fun, and Peanut will probably be in full throttle excitement mode, so you'll get to enjoy that and then settle down for a nice, peaceful evening with hub!
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Post by 3piggles on Dec 10, 2019 22:22:50 GMT
Hubby and I were talking about why each of our families went to artificial trees, and the needles all over everything, plus having to water constantly to avoid a fire, just got to be too much work. I do like the artificial trees. There's a place that does fabulous one, way out of our price range, but I think it's called Balsam Hill. We get the catalogue every season, and ooh and ah over the trees, until we look at the prices!
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Post by Bean on Dec 11, 2019 7:48:40 GMT
Ours is a Balsalm Hill one, a prelit one - they are very nice and look much more realistic than many artificial ones. You're right, the prices are eye watering though, but they always tend to do really good deals right after Christmas if you can be organised!
I wasn't actually planning on buying one, but they had a really good offer close to Christmas one year (not just the usual fake sale they have in each catalogue here!), and our old one was pretty tired, so I decided to go for it! It was only a couple of years ago and I need to tell them to stop sending me a catalogue - we're sorted thanks!
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Post by 3piggles on Dec 11, 2019 22:11:12 GMT
Once they've got your name, you're on their catalogue list! I'd love to get a Balsam Hill, but as we only buy the 4' tree, we really don't need it. Hubby is so into Christmas decorations, he always talks about getting a big tree. What would we do with it? Where would we put it. We just don't have the space. What we have is perfect. We'll get a new one, one of these years, but for now, it's doing just great We're finally getting to the dates when, if we don't order by now, we won't get things by Christmas, so the 10+ catalogues per day in the mail is finally dwindling down to one or two, and somedays none at all What a waste of trees! So much paper, all to end up in the trash
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Post by Bean on Dec 12, 2019 9:03:46 GMT
I usually contact companies and ask to be removed from any mailing lists. It works. I just keep forgetting with Balsalm Hill as it's only once a year, and it's always a really busy time when they mail out!
I'm off to vote now. Hoping for a miracle today!
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Post by 3piggles on Dec 13, 2019 1:19:32 GMT
Exit polls weren't encouraging
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Post by Bean on Dec 13, 2019 7:09:12 GMT
Nope...
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Post by 3piggles on Dec 14, 2019 1:19:09 GMT
Bad results Sorry
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Post by Bean on Dec 15, 2019 7:53:35 GMT
Okay, I've had a mope now - I'm back in the room!
We went to see a production of A Christmas Carol. I assumed it was a play when I booked it, but it was actually a storyteller performing it, accompanied at times by a violinist who was also on stage. He was brilliant, such an engaging performance and all the voices and mannerisms he took on for the different characters were so distinctive and compelling.
While we were watching it, I couldn't help but think that for me, Scrooge is Michael Caine after seeing him in a Muppet's Christmas Carol - is that sad?!
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Post by 3piggles on Dec 15, 2019 20:56:34 GMT
Hehehe, yes, Scrooge is Michael Caine 🤗
Lost power a few minutes ago. Nice having a generator. I was making meal shakes hubby, and watching football, when everything went dark. Waited a few seconds, and everything was back on. Been about 20 minutes, now. Wind gusts took out something, somewhere.
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Post by Bean on Dec 16, 2019 8:24:14 GMT
I hope it didn't take too long to come back on, especially for the sake of anyone who doesn't have a generator!
We've had our annual trip to the German Christmas market, and the Christmas fair (I got a bit of whiplash on the bumper cars!).
Yesterday I asked a friend how he was and he replied 'Fine, aside from Thursday...' so I asked 'Oh no, what happened on Thursday?'. It took me a couple of seconds, I'm doing very well at blocking it out haha!
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Post by 3piggles on Dec 17, 2019 3:08:37 GMT
I think it's nice to have traditions. We don't really have any. My family didn't do traditions. Daughter wasn't interested unless she got something out of it, so we never managed any. Luckily for you, Thursday was a one-of, not a tradition 🤗
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Post by amber89 on Dec 17, 2019 8:31:40 GMT
Is the electricity back?
I remember as a child the power cuts, though they were due to other reasons...when the whole district would go pitch black. We had in the kitchen a drawer full with candles and we also had a gas lamp. I remember doing plenty of homework at the light of a gas lamp or a candle and sometimes slightly burning my hair.
We bought yesterday our tree. We opt for natural ones. Vienna has all over the city locations where the dry trees are collected at the end of the Christmas period (usually after the 7th of January) and then are used somehow... We have a 1.5 m tall one and we'll need to cut a bit from the piggies play-pen. For now it is on the hallway, in a bucket with water. We'll put it up on Friday when we also have the big clean-up for the pigs.
I insisted on a tree... I didn't had for as long as i was living with my parents (only when i was 6 did mom bring a huge tree for christmas). I think i want to catch up on all those years when Christmas didn't really feel like Christmas.
The menu for the 25th is also settled. Everyone voted and the siblings will split up the work. Each of us will get to do one course. We are doing the starters (avocado tartar with shrimps and tuna tartar), his brother will do the main dish (dear stake), his sister will do the soup (pumpkin soup) and his papa will do the desert (fir honey parfait with thyme). Hubby and I will also do the cocktail.
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Post by Bean on Dec 17, 2019 8:35:28 GMT
That sounds great and I think it's really good when the work is shared when different families come together.
I'm glad you got your real tree too!
Although we have things we do each year - like the panto and Christmas market, I do feel that through spending Christmas Day elsewhere most years, we've not really established too many traditions of our own yet for the actual day. I'm looking forward to owning this one! (There won't be a mince pie in sight - none of us like many of the traditional Christmas treats that are rolled out!)
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Post by 3piggles on Dec 17, 2019 21:10:01 GMT
It was the same for us, Bean. We moved a good hour away from the nearest family, so on Christmas, if my father got the day off, or when he got a day off, we had to make the rounds of the family. That meant travel down to one, stay overnight, travel to the next, stay overnight, go home. Not great for establishing traditions. We did always have a tree, though. That was nice. My parents, mother probably, also always bought us certain small gifts we really looked forward to, so that was also nice. We'd have our Christmas celebration before we left, so we had things to bring with us, and keep us quiet. It's nice, now, just for the two of us to stay home on Christmas, cook a nice meal, open our gifts, and just relax We did enough years of family and friends, huge meals, huge clean up, etc. Amber, that sounds like a great division of labor, and it can be fun for everyone, as no one has to do it all Will your husband know if his paper gets published by then, or not until after the holidays? It would be nice for him to be able to show his family his accomplishments.
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Post by Bean on Dec 18, 2019 8:47:19 GMT
I've never hosted a big Christmas meal, although I've contributed by bringing dishes when other people have. All I know is the chef always gets out of washing/drying up, so that'd be a bonus! (Although, especially since having a dishwasher, there is amusement to be had in regressing to some good-natured grumbling about the endless washing up, who's doing more than who, and why can't people just put the pans on the table instead of transferring everything to silly little dishes and doubling the washing up! The times it's progressed into a bit of a water fight shouldn't be repeated though...!)
Just realised I haven't made my Christmas wreath yet - must get onto that!
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Post by amber89 on Dec 18, 2019 13:49:53 GMT
Well, hubby's brother wanted that we cook the whole 4-course-meal and i didn't agree with it. Usually it the adult siblings are cooking by rotation a whole Christmas meal. For the last two years we cooked, but because his siblings were not in Vienna with their parents they didn't took it into account. So, we came to this setting. Makes everyone happy I highly doubt it, thought miracles could happen. I suppose the editor is also on vacation. Even with the dishwasher, there can still be enough mumbling...why do i need to clean up, but my siblings didn't empty it first...and so on... You should visit my hubby's family and see how much complaining can be...3 adult siblings and 1 teenager. It can be fun and give you a headache!
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Post by 3piggles on Dec 18, 2019 22:11:23 GMT
I remember the pre-dishwasher days, when my sister would disappear after every meal, so my mother would make me do all the clean up. Not fond memories, and definitely worth getting a dishwasher. Once my mother got her first dishwasher, no more complaints, as she wanted it loaded a specific way, so did it herself. That's not a comment about her, but about how the dishwasher needed to be loaded We'll serve Christmas Eve dinner as a buffet, and will transfer things from pans to serving dishes, just because the pans are too hot to put on the counter. I don't mind washing some things by hand, as the hot water feel great on my hands, but wouldn't want to have to wash everything. We never dried the dishes. My mother wanted them air dried, because she didn't trust the drying towels to be and stay clean enough. Fine with me, but a big meal meant dishes, pots and pans stacked pretty high. Don't jump in the kitchen, or it will all come tumbling down, lol. At least my sister usually turned up to put away the clean dishes, later! I figure, of all the things we could complain about, that was pretty mild, lol Hubby usually does the big pots and pans, and they won't fit in our divided sink, and have to go in the big utility sink in the back room. He uses that, so is motivated to get things washed and out there
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Post by amber89 on Dec 19, 2019 11:19:53 GMT
I first saw a dishwasher when i moved to Vienna and i was baffled by it. I knew that they existed, because i saw it in the movies, but it seemed like something that only the super-rich would have (like those 3 million $ yachts). They didn't existed in any shops in Bucharest at the time that i left. Even my rich high-school did not have one...and then to have one at my then-boyfriend's house (now my hubby) AND at his parent's home was something beyond my understanding. He had to explain me that dishwashers were something quite common already when he was a child...
It took me a long time to get used to a dishwasher and not try to use as little pots/cutlery/plates as possible or first wash everything by hand. I am still no expert in loading the dishwasher to its full potential. Feels like 3D Tetris, grown-up version. When we have a lot of pots hubby loads it, since he has the experience.
In this small details one can really feel the immense difference between the former communist countries and the free world. Things that in the West are something common for decades are unheard of in the other part of Europe.
Hubby and me have a deal: he does the dishes and i usually take care of the clothes. I hate washing dishes since my dad sent me to the kitchen to help mom with the dishes "because I am a girl". Hubby hates putting the clothes in the drawers once they are dry; so we found a balance. If i do the dishes, he is the one that has to do the big pots and pans. They are way to heavy for me. I need two hands to only lift the big pan...
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Post by 3piggles on Dec 19, 2019 22:35:03 GMT
I think that was something people from the communist countries were told was wasteful capitalist garbage, but it's actually quite useful. Not only do dishwashers use less water than hand washing uses, but if we don't use the heat drying cycle, and only use the air drying cycle, we don't use that much electricity. Heat drying is what really gobbles the electricity.
My mothers first dishwasher was on wheels. It was square and fairly deep. She had to roll it to the sink, hook the hose to the faucet, and run it. She had a place to keep it, as she could roll it out of the way to get to the cabinets it blocked, so she was pleased with it. I don't even know if portable dishwashers are available anymore. I'd actually love to get the draw kind, where the space a regular dishwasher uses is taken up with two separate drawers. That way, if there aren't too many dishes, use just one draw, and save money. Lots of dishes, use both drawers. They are expensive, though, so not going to get one of those. Our dishwasher is fine.
I do find there are things best not washed in the dishwasher. My pots and pans are one, and I don't mind doing them by hand. I think dishwashers are hard on nonstick surfaces in pans, so although they are allegedly dishwasher safe, I wouldn't put them in the dishwasher.
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