Christmas in Swissy

Ive only ever experience christmas in England before, with everything that goes with it. Getting up at 6am christmas morning getting the lunch ready for my family, opening presents and looking thru the window at the rain most probably.

Ive always found christmas to be a terrible let down. Im a hopeless romantic and always imagined everyone else had this story book existance that culminated in the most fantasamagocial christmas extravaganza. Whilst me on the other hand, spent my time pushing a huge trolley around Tesco whilst creatively thinking of recipes and food for a family more interested in champagne and parties. (Ive always been a square peg in a round hole me :)

So was christmas with chop-chop in Swissy going to at last exceed my overly high expectations of the christms season???

My first christmas in Swissy was a totally different experience. I arrived in Zurich a few days before christmas and hadnt seen my boyfriend chop-chop for over a month.(his nic name if you read my first post lol). Having lived in zurich for about 5 months beforehand I knew what foods I could buy and what i couldnt so i had the brilliant idea of shopping at Tesco and taking all the traditional things i thought chop-chop might like with me in my suitcase. I flew from Gatwick and i was allowed one case, a handbag and one item of hand luggage. Chop-chop has a huge record collection, hes a real music buff but no record player anymore. He usually listens to music on his computer now and has a woofer thingie and all the high tech gismos that make experiencing music akin to being in a nightclub. Well I discovered this turntable thingie that plugs into the computer. Great idea for chops chops pressie i thought, so I duly bought one. Huge box which i couldnt wrap up incase customs wanted a lookie, so i carried it in a bin bag lol. My case was then stuffed with meat products (which are hugely expensive in swissy), a ham to glaze and bake, a turkey etc. then englishy things like christmas pudding. I joked that if customs wouldnt let me thru I could have my christmas dinner at the airport. So my case weighed a ton, I had a huge bin bag with a record deck in it, a handbag stuffed full of stuff as well and off i went.

Everything went without fail and I arrived to a cold but snowless Zurich at about 7pm that night. chop-chop was waiting for me and i was really excited because there was a new tram directly from the airport to where we lived. I also got vast quantities of alcohol in the duty free, so we got stuck into that and a last minute purchse in duty free of a tin of ginger biscuits from Harrods.

We spent the next day buying and wrapping presents and me cooking my ham. Men always leave these things to the last moment dont they, was great fun, all the christmassy lights and crisp air, people rushing around, made me feel christmas had finally come. We spent the next day wrapping the presents. Chop-chop is very artistic he used to be a talented graffiti writer (when he was still nimble enough to run fast :) so we made cards for all the gifts, used silky ribbons, stencils, cuttings knives. wow they were the best looking gifts id seen for ages.

December 25th - I cooked my ham, with a brown sugar and mustard glaze in the oven for about 2 hours. Chop-chop liked that with salad and crusty bread for lunch and there was heaps and heaps left over for over christmas. In the evening we went for a christmas meal with his family, then afterwards we went back to his sisters house for the present opening ceremony. This was fantastic fun and his sister made these delicious traditional swissy cookies with spices for us all to nibble on whilst we tore paper off gifts, hugging and kissing one another (oh and did i mention drinking copious amounts of vodka) :)

Christmas was one of the best I ever had, filled with love and warmth, unfortunately the snow didnt come until the New Year, but when it came boy did it come lol :)