Christmas is CANCELLED!

Well, the original 'plan' is, anyway.

You see, one of my pool-playing buddies has this friend who has a Chinese wife who manages a European restaurant..... that isn't opening on Christmas Day. So, the suggestion had been made that we, a select group of friends, could take the place over for the day, and try our hands at knocking together a Christmas lunch in a professional kitchen.

Yes, I fear it was always 'a bridge too far'. The number of invitees began to snowball (and to include more Chinese guests, thereby increasing the pressure to provide a mixture of Western and Chinese dishes; we'd already been committed to trying to do two roasts, since the Welsh, apparently, favour lamb over turkey as their traditional Christmas meat - now it seemed as though we might have to add Beijing Duck to the menu as well!). And we'd had no time to get together for a planning meeting - to discuss how we were going to divvy up the shopping and cooking (and cleaning up afterwards!) duties for such a large party.

It was small wonder that the project rapidly unravelled at the end of last week.

However, despite the rather high potential for chaos and acrimony in the kitchen, I had rather been looking forward to it. After all, what is Christmas without a little chaos and acrimony?! I had been nervous about the prospect of trying to use professional cooking facilities (and in a kitchen/restaurant I'd never seen before) - without trashing them - but I was also strangely excited by the challenge.

I think we must try to resurrect this idea next year - keeping tighter control on the numbers, and allowing ourselves a bit more preparation time to address the logistics.

I had briefly worried that I would now be left friendless and foodless on the big day (90% of my friends have left town this year; and it's almost certainly now too late to book anywhere for a meal out.....); but instead I find myself helping my friend DD to cook dinner round at her place. An altogether more manageable sort of party, but still..... 7 adults and 2 young children: far from straightforward!