Christmas Day in the Workhouse

It was a good day, a great day in fact. 16 for Christmas Dinner but then, at the end, Daniel said it had been a great Sunday Dinner, but not a Christmas Dinner because there weren't any Crackers!!! The box was on the dining room cabinet but hadn't been put out on the table! HAHAHAHAHAHA They were duly distributed, pulled, and very bad jokes told.
It wasn't too early a start either, plus I had help in the kitchen in the shape of Isabella. She helped with mixing the sausage meat stuffing and rolling them into balls, although her balls turned out to be more like stuffing pizzas HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Nnormally even a Sunday dinner starts early getting the meat on to slow cook for hours. Marlane had ordered ready prepared meats, stuffed Panchetta Pork joint, Three bird roast and a small lamb joint that had a very flavourable glaze on it. The longest to cook was only two hours on the instructions but all three had different cooking times and techniques, e.g. do this after 30 minutes, cover loosely for xx minutes, uncover for the last 30 minutes etc. very hard to keep track of.I cooked them for longer than the instructions said but the pork and lamb were still not cooked as much as we normally like. We are not pink meat eaters, well done, if not cremated, is more our line.
Not to worry, there was time to cut them into smaller chunks and continue cooking for a while and it all turned out well.
I also made yorkshire puddings yesterday, and froze them for today. Much better than Aunt Bessies, although the ready made ones are convenient at times.
We also had the traditional, Dutch family recipe, meatball soup of course.
Lots of lovely presents for the children, the mess was just, as normal, horrendous but the relevant parents tidied up at the end and all we are left with is a mountain of packaging and wrapping to recycle and bin.
Tired but happy.
One of my presents was a mug, see extra.