The Live Christmas Blog

So, this is my first ever attempt at live-blogging. DW hates this idea, I'm super excited about it! As I understand, making mistakes while live-blogging is not frowned upon and I hope you will grant me that luxury here. The intent is to capture every moment as it happens and bring out candid emotions. Not adulterated with well thought out keying. The ones who follow this post over the next couple of days -- I know you care and I love you for it. Alrighty, here it goes --

Dec24, 11.03AM: I woke up late this morning after posting the Pre-Christmas blog. I hope you enjoyed the post. I am now gearing up for an unbelievable day of cooking. The menu is pretty ambitious --

1. Carrot Salad and/or Raita
2. Soups (Chicken noodle and Spring Veggie)
3. Pilsbury Savorings -- DW is very eager to try this out, I do not know what this is?
4. Veg. Biryani
5. Paneer Tikka -- or curry for a change.
6. Prawn Briyani
7. Chicken wings
8. Fish Cutlets
9. Cake -- DF Viju offered to bake this for us. Thank you!

I'll see you in a bit. Gotta get cooking!

Dec24, 11.55AM: I am done with marinating the prawns and set it aside in the refrigerator. Dear parents-in-law (DPIL) brought some tasty masalas  (spiced powders) from DW's home town (Mangalore), when they visited us over the summer. I religiously use them in addition to ginger-garlic paste (that I am an avid user of), some coriander chutney and a little salt to marinate. The potatoes are boiling at this time, who will later make their way into DW's fish cutlet recipe.

We are also exploring some recipes online. In the  past month, DW has been hooked onto this chef from VahReVah.com for cooking instructions. He makes cooking sound exciting. We will most likely use his recipe for Vegetable Biryani today. Anticipating a heavy cooking load, we bought the Oster food processor over the weekend to make things easy. It works like a charm and chops large onions in a few seconds.

I'll be baaak!

Dec24, 1.20PM: DW finished up with the Carrot salad (see picture). It tastes yummy! Also done with cutting onions. We had an SOS moment in between -- no Paneer in the refrigerator! DF Deep came to the rescue by graciously accepting my request to bring some Paneer along (from the Indian store) in the evening. I should be a matter of less than half-an-hour to make the Paneer Tikka. The chicken wings also should take no more than 15 - 20 minutes. I peeled off the  boiled potatoes and DW mashed them. We are now preparing the mix for the fish cutlets.

I will now step out for a little bit (Shoprite) to bring some vegetables for the biryani. Be right back!

Dec24, 3.45PM: Oh man, it took much longer than I had imagined. The holiday season traffic had completely clogged the roads in-and-out of the mall area. The weather isn't helping much either. It has been raining incessantly. The nice part about driving during the holiday season is that people tend to be more understanding than usual. But for the kind heartedness of two gentlemen (who let me into the mainline traffic), I would have been waiting at a stop sign for what seemed like eternity (happened in NJ, can you believe it?).

When I got back home, DW was done making the fish cutlets. I tasted one of them and absolutely loved it. I always knew that I made the right choice of a life partner. But, each time she  feeds me something like this, my belief becomes stronger. :) DW also set up "the crib" (see picture).

Alrighty, I gotta get cleaning and cooking now. DW is fuming!! Will key in more soon.

Dec25, 2.24AM: Merry Christmas!! DW says -- "May the good lord shower his choicest blessings on all of us". Keeping up with the live blogging is tough, especially when you have so many things happening around you. I cooked for 4.5 straight hours starting 5pm. We managed to complete all the dishes except Paneer Tikka (Sorry Viju!). No points for guessing the most popular dish of the evening -- DW's fish cutlets. Slurp!

DFs Deep, Viju and Swati came in at about 7pm. DFs Arvind and Akshay at about 8.30pm. And finally, DFs Ankit and Anand showed up at 10.30pm (they drove all the way from Boston). All of them brought along an ornament for the Christmas tree with them (see pictures).

          The Christmas Tree                         DF Swati's Ornament             DFs Viju and Deep's Ornament          DF Arvind's Ornament

    DF Akshay's Ornament                 DF Ankit's Ornament                                   Our Secret Santa gifts

We absolutely loved the ornaments that our DFs contributed to the Christmas tree this year. We plan to continually use these ornaments in the years to come. In a few years, will be able to associate each ornament on our tree with wonderful memories of Christmas with our DFs. This was actually suggested to me by an office colleague of mine, Arlene (Thank you!). What a wonderful way to make each Christmas, a special one? We clicked several pictures, which I will share with you soon. Tomorrow morning, we will open our "Secret Santa gifts" (see picture above). Cannot wait!!

Alrighty, I'm going to crash now. DW and I plan to attend the Christmas mass at the St. Joseph's Church tomorrow morning, at 9am. Merry Christmas again. I hope you have a wonderful time in the company of your family and friends. See you again tomorrow!

Dec25, 10.11AM: We woke up at 8am this morning and went to the Christmas mass. As always, DW dressed cool. We had DF Deep take a picture of us after we got back home. Check it out. We will be opening our Secret Santa gifts soon!!

Dec25, 10.40AM: We opened our Secret Santa gifts at last! DF Ankit bought me (Thank you!) "MLB 2008 - the show" and a memory card for our Play Station 2. DW received "Buzz - The Mega Quiz" for PS2 (thanks for recommending this game, DF Reggie) from DF Anand. We absolutely loved the gifts, thank you!

The other usual suspects loved their gifts too. If you still do not know who these "usual suspects" are (the ones I talk about often), here is a chance to put faces onto names. All of them with their respective gifts.

 

Opening my gift                     DF Viju and DW are thrilled!        DW's puppy-like excitement            DF Arvind a.k.a. Dada

 

DF Akshay a.k.a. Bhand                                         DF Swati a.k.a. Swats                                     DF Anand a.k.a. Pillari

          DF Deep a.k.a. Buzurg                                      DF Viju a.k.a. Ramky                                DF Ankit a.k.a. Boogdee

Christmas turned out to be a wonderful day, indeed. We played Buzz (DW's gift) all day long. We also decided to compete in a knock-out league amongst ourselves, which DF Ankit won (as usual). But mind you, DW and DF Swats were plenty smart. The beat us all in most of the match ups that followed.

Dec25, 7.30PM: In the evening, we assembled beside the Christmas tree and put together our latest home video. It is called -- "Dance Pe Chance Maarle", which literally translates to -- "Dance on Chance Hit-take", but supposed to mean -- "Take a chance on (try out) Dance". Check it out (click on image below). I hope you enjoy it! Let us know what you think?!

And finally, the week ended (yesterday) with an absolute miracle. Dear team (DT) E.A.G.L.E.S (you probably saw me wearing our team jersey in the Dance pe Chance video, above) made it through to the playoffs against all odds. They beat the Dallas Cowboys convincingly, 44 - 6. For the ones in India, who may not be able to comprehend the significance of this win; this is equivalent to India beating Pakistan (in Cricket) for Philadelphia American Football fans. Not only did we beat them, we deservedly secured a berth in the playoffs and ousted them from it. DF Arvind (my sporting BFF) and I were ecstatic! I am eagerly looking forward to their first playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings on Jan 4.

Alrighty all, I have to crash now. For a change, it is not 4AM in the morning, but 4PM in the afternoon. You may have already guessed (from above) that I haven't slept much in the past days. So, I am really looking forward to catching up on it. The usual suspects are now planning a road trip to Boston for the New Year celebrations, hosted by DF Ankit. Be assured that I will have a lot to key about soon.

See you all again, in 2009. I wish you a wonderful holiday season and a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious New Year ahead!