My Christmas ham, my sledging slam, my winter tan.....

I am happy to say that I made it back to Switzerland for Christmas, and am very pleased to have done so.  Despite missing my family, with it being the first Christmas I have spent without them, never before have I had Christmas in such naturally festive surroundings, with snow on the ground, logs on the fire and pretty much a whole farmyard worth of roasted animals on the table - perfect!  The week before Christmas was also glorious - spending time with friends and family in the UK and my beloved Papa's 60th birthday celebrations. 

Christmas on a budget was a very good exercise in being frugal, and I learnt some extremely important lessons that I am going to share with you (because I am so nice):

1) Nobody really gives a shit what their presents are wrapped in.  There was a time when I would never have adorned a present with anything other than the finest Selfridges gift wrap, complete with bows, tassles, tags and glitter.  In reality, you could wrap presents in pages of saved-up issues of Novembers' London Lite (or 'Zwanzig Minuten' as the equivalent is called over here) and the recipient would just be glad to have something to tear off.  (I didn't do that btw - things aren't that bad yet, but I've started saving the Zwanzig Minuten anyway in anticipation for Christmas 2010...)

2) Contrary to my previous beliefs, one CAN wear an already existing outfit to the table on Christmas Day.  It doesn't have to be a brand new sparkly number, specially purchased for the occasion of sitting at home, stuffing one's face and getting legless on Snowballs! Nor does one have to take a November holiday purely for the purposes of having a tan during the Christmas break - St Tropez in a bottle does the job almost as well...  What a revelation! 

3) One can be very creative with one's Christmas dinner components if need be.  I was in a state of semi-shock and despair to discover that neither Bisto nor Paxo (or an equivalent of either) exists in Switzerland.  And whilst I pride myself on my culinary talents, I have yet to discover a gravy that tastes as good if there isn't some Bisto mixed in, and am ashamed to say that I never had any rhyme or reason to make stuffing from scratch before.  Well, actually I'm not THAT ashamed -  there are worse things in life to be guilty of (many of which I probably am).  Anyway - thanks to my mother (who knows everything in the whole wide world, ever) I managed to pull off both, and to a pretty high standard if I do say so myself ....though I could have used the leftover stuffing as that bouncy flooring you get in childrens' adventure playgrounds the next day... (sorry mum but I added an extra egg and forgot to measure the breadcrumbs)

4) One can live (just!) without a shop being open on Christmas Day.  Although Christmas Eve in the local Co Op was possibly one of the worst shopping experiences I have ever had (and I usually love ANY kind of shopping experience)!  Panic-buying like I've never seen it before.  Red mullets going through those checkout tills ten-to-a-dozen... ;)

5) Swiss meat products are infinitely better than British ones.  Sorry homies, but it's true.  Yes, you pay the price for the extra quality but my goodness I have never cooked such good beef, ham or chicken ever before.

6) Smuggling pork products from UK to Switzerland is easy - 2 kilos of English bacon made it back with us, enabling me to make THIS BEAUTY on New Years Eve - a piece of art that I truly believe is my finest achievement to date, ever....!

So there you have it - Christmas in Switzerland is a wonderful experience, and I look forward to the next one being attended by my immediate family as well as my beloved's.

Now - onto the winter sports.  You may remember from my previous posts that the ever increasing (in direct correlation with the approach to winter) question of "ski or board?" was something of a distressing one for me to answer.  Well, I finally spent some time in the snow, and discovered that so far my favourite activity is without doubt sledging.  I was thrown into the epitome of all sledging challenges in my first ever attempt, by being taken to the longest sledge run in Europe - 12km of downhill, icy snow.  And THOROUGHLY loved every minute of it! (well, almost every minute - there was an unfortunate incident at the outset after deciding that it was obviously a much better idea to share a sledge with a 6"2' man instead of going on my own that rendered me temporarily immobile and on the verge of tears - ... clearly I missed the logical fact that with 83 kilos of additional momentum on board, any speed was going to be quadrupled and therefore any head-first, high-speed crash into a pile of snow would be infinitely more painful than if it was just little old me on my own!  But once I commandeered the sledge for myself, it was fun and games the rest of the way down!)

As for the "ski or board?" question...  I'm yet to arrive at a decision.  Once again, I'll keep you posted!

In the Christmas spirit (literally)

So, one thing they do very well here is Christmas.  None of these cheap neon plastic stars and trees hanging from lamp posts that you get in the 'burbs in the UK.  Here its glitz and glamour all the way.  I love it!  I stood on one of the cobbled streets in the old town centre yesterday evening, looking up at an beautiful array of golden, twinkling rain above me - it was like being in a sparkly, glittery fairytale world (which many people may say I live in most of the time anyway...)

The train station here has a 30ft Swarovski crystal Christmas Tree in it!  Train stations in England have beggars in them, puddles of wee, and sometimes needle bins.  All of which can be shiny, but not in a good way.

Its highly unfortunate that the one Christmas that I am not surrounded by neon tat, is the one during which neon tat just about represents my demographic profile...  Still - it makes my walks from the train station to home, via the 2FR shop much more interesting.  The 2FR shop being the Swiss equivalent of the Pound Shops back at home (although strictly speaking 2FR today is about £1.30 so as with most things here, you pay a higher price!)  I finished my job 2 weeks ago, so am officially unemployed for the duration of December at least.

Now, Christmas is a bit different in these parts.  First of all we need to address the issue of Schmutzli.  Schmutzli is like the evil Santa - he dresses in black and follows Santa around and basically (from what I can work out) beats the living crap out of naughty kids with a broom stick...... erm, ok.  Don't believe me?  Check it out here.
Imagine Schmutzli in Streatham?  He wouldn't last 5 minutes.  Some youth would have kneecapped him at the first glimmer of a broom, a long time ago.

Anyway, being fully briefed in the Swiss version of Christmas, I was feeling quite proud of myself a couple of weeks ago at work (when I still had a job), when one expat (who has been here a hell of a lot longer than me I might add) piped up (in the very quiet and serious office) 'does anyone know what Schmutzli is?  My 5 year old has been invited to a party and apparently Schmutzli is going to be there with Santa?' 
Me, being a) excited that I knew the answer, and b) loud because it was my second to last day there jumped up and went 'I KNOW! I KNOW! ITS THE BAD SANTA!' and immediately proceeded, hastily, to try and bring it up on Google to prove that I was right.  Not knowing the correct spelling I got as far as SMUT and managed to hit enter, at which point an array of porn sites appeared, and the company firewall shut me down - bringing up a red, flashing security alert on my screen, and all of the people who'd started to quietly gather around my desk for the lesson in Swiss Festive History witnessed my shameful finale at the Bank...  oh well, better to go out with a bang hey?

Now, the other thing about winter in Switzerland is of course the snow.  I can't tell you how many people have said to me (not as part of a conversation - just as a random question in itself): 'Ski or board?'  Just like that.  Out of the blue.  Even people that I have never spoken to before.  Is that like the only thing there is to talk about here in the winter?  Do I ski or do I snowboard?  errr, does Apres Ski count for nothing?  Yes I have skied, about 16 years ago, in Scotland, for a bit.  And it was ok, but the most appealing things about skiing for me, nowadays are the cosy chalet bars, the warm alcohol fumes, the furry hooded Chanel ski jacket, the oversized shades and the excuse to buy La Prairie skincare products to combat the cold weather effects.....  Skiing on a budget however - that's a different story.  If I am going to chuck myself down a mountain into the freezing snow, with my feet strapped into their own individual sleighs and my already-overly-mobile knees at risk of permanent relocation from my legs, then I am sure as shit going to look good while I am doing it.  And I'll be wearing enough of an alcohol-jacket to mask both the cold, and the inevitable pain.  Let's just be clear about that from the outset.  

As for 'boarding'... well, I am still trying to work out whether having my legs strapped to individual sledges, or keeping them firmly together is a better idea.  But the simple fact that to me most snowboarders look like something out of South Park might be enough to make me a skiier.  Ski or board?  I'll keep you posted....