Ah, Christmas. So special. So fun. So magical. Well, that’s what I thought,  as a little girl growing up on the west coast of Ireland. My mother would try to stave off sunlight deficiency disorder for us all by preloading Christmas on 1 November.

There were two reasons for this. The first is that winter in Ireland is the most depressing place on Earth. You can count the hours of daylight on one hand, the rain is relentless and it’s bone-chillingly cold but not actually cold enough for snow. That’s Ireland for you: neutral, even when it comes to the weather.

The second reason Christmas arrived so early was because my mum had a unique combination of talents: she was a garden designer, an exceptional cook and was “crafty”. She would hone these talents throughout the year until they reached peak elf status and Christmas would explode in our home like a confetti bomb. Except there was no confetti because she also had taste.

We’re talking handmade wreaths from “a few things I found in the garden”, a lighting design that would shame Fifth Avenue and a variety of pots bubbling on the stove emitting aromas most commonly found in a fancy French brasserie.

I inherited none of these talents. None. She bought me a book when I left home called How to Boil an Egg and I’m still working through it 20 years later. And foliage? I’m like the Grim Reaper to plants.

It never occurred to me that I would ever truly need to learn these things. The elf-in-chief was, after all, only a Facetime call away. And then… she died. DIED! Leaving me heartbroken but more importantly, for the purposes of this article, alone staring down the barrel of Christmas Future with the assumed mandate as the new matriarch to “create the magic of Christmas”.

I tried. I really did. But after the “Christmas incident of 2021” I’m not even allowed to wrap presents. (It’s a long story but suffice to say the emergency room did not feel paper cuts were high on the triage scale.)

I convinced myself the reason I wasn’t a good cook was that it just didn’t seem worth it to cook for four, so last year I invited 25 people to lunch, invoking that old chestnut: “the more, the merrier”. It quite literally ended with me on the couch in tears declaring to my long-suffering husband the truth he’d known all along: I’m crap at Christmas.

Acceptance is the first step. Defeat, however, I’m not willing to dance with. It occurred to me — sometime on Black Friday as I panic-bought enough fairy lights to get Kusile power station back up and running — that I could lean on the experts, and reached out to Tony Jackman, Daily Maverick’s food editor, with a plea for a recipe for the most culinary-challenged person he can think of. He provided two. May the Christmas elves bless this man for many years to come.

So, that was the food sorted. Now the decor. I’ve spent many weeks reading decor articles (they’re exquisitely boring) and discussing this with interior designers so you don’t have to. Here are my learnings:

Creating a Christmas atmosphere needs to hit all the senses: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and tactile. Tony is taking care of the gustatory, so we can move on…

Visual

What comes up when you type ‘hygge’ into an Unsplash search. (Photo: Nav Rashmi Kalsi on Unsplash)

The best thing to come out of Denmark since Viggo Mortensen is the concept of “hygge”. Basically, it means creating a warm, cosy environment. And the best news is, as South Africans we’re already halfway there thanks to our government’s mandated hygge vibes through load shedding. Hygge essentials: candlelight, LED fairy lights and a roaring braai fire. (Essential note: LED lights come in warm, blue and epilepsy-inducing; you need to buy the WARM ones.)

Auditory

(Photo: 12019 on Pixabay)

I’m going to say it — Mariah Carey exists for a reason and that reason is to help the Christmas-challenged to create a vibe. Not necessarily a good vibe, but a vibe. Drink through it if you must.

Olfactory

(Photo: Kateřina Kyslingová from Pixabay)

Usually this would be created by the aromas of a leg of something being roasted in the oven but as we have accepted our fate, and Tony’s recipes for us are essentially odourless, we’re left with one option: scented candles. A word to the wise here — less is more. Combining a multitude of competing scented candles will not create the atmosphere you were hoping for; it will create nausea and possibly a migraine. One candle per room max.

Tactile

This one is a little weird and had me spiral into some deep reflection. Olaf said it best: “I like warm hugs”.

Warm hugs…

Could it be that the magic of Christmas that my mother created wasn’t actually about the food or the decor or the perfectly wrapped presents? Maybe it was just her.

She was there, available for a warm hug. And an overdue chat. Keen to watch Love Actually with me for the 14th year in a row and who laughed hysterically at the same thing each time.

That made me realise something: I don’t have to accept that I’m crap at Christmas. It may not resemble what my childhood Christmas was but maybe my children’s core Christmas memories will be the smell of burnt eggs, their mum cheerfully shrugging her shoulders and taking them to the beach instead to jump in the waves together while butchering “All I want for Christmas is Yooooouuuuuu!”

At the end of the day, I’ll wrap them in a towel and give them a warm hug.

Until then, here are Tony’s recipes…

Festive potato salad without any mayo

• 30 baby potatoes
• 4 spring onions
• 1 green pepper
• 1 red pepper
• 1/2 cup flaked almonds
• 2 Tbsp capers, drained
• 4 preserved green figs
• 3 Tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 3 heaped Tbsp wholegrain mustard
• 4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• Juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 Tbsp caper brine (the liquid in the capers jar)
• 2 Tbsp of the syrup from the jar of preserved green figs
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Edible flowers

​​Put the unpeeled baby potatoes in a pot of cold water and bring to the boil. Cook at a rapid boil until they are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Tip them into a colander and run cold water through it. Leave them to cool.

When they are cool enough to handle, peel the skins off with your fingers. Not with a knife or peeler. Slice each potato in half.

Tip them into a big bowl.

Slice the spring onions thinly.

Remove the innards from the peppers and cut them into tiny dice. (The peppers, not the seeds and veins.)

Heat a dry frying pan on the stove and add the flaked almonds. Toast them dry, tossing the pan, until they start to take on colour, but don’t let them brown.

Slice the green figs into little pieces. Chop the parsley very finely. Not your fingers.

Add the spring onions, peppers, capers and figs to the potatoes in the bowl. But not the almonds.

Mix the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl. Season with salt and black pepper.

Spoon this on top of the potatoes and other ingredients and use two wooden spoons to toss everything together.

Spoon the salad into an attractive bowl.

Finally, scatter the toasted flaked almonds on top. 

If you have some edible flowers such as violas, pansies, rose petals, marigold or lavender, garnish with a few of them.

Cheat’s Tipsy Trifle

(Photo: Louis Pieterse)

Christmas doesn’t have to be time-consuming and difficult. Fancy a fancy dessert that will keep your tippling uncle happy? You could spend hours making a plum pudding in October and feed it brandy every week for three months. Or you could ixnay that and throw a trifle together on Christmas Eve.

For the base (that’s the part at the bottom with bits of cake to soak up liquor), use a shop-bought Madeira cake or regular fruit cake from the bakery section of your local supermarket.

Check the liquor cabinet for leftover sherry or that bottle of liqueur that your grandad gave you and you forgot about (it’s at the back, behind the Old Brown Sherry). Or just use the Old Brown Sherry. Pour it over the cake in the bottom of the bowl. Not too much.

Make jelly from a packet. The directions are on the packet, at the back. Let it cool but not set.

Drain the tin of fruit cocktail you bought when you went to the shop for the cake, and spoon the fruit on top of the cake.

Pour the cooled jelly over the fruit. Put it in the fridge for a few hours for the jelly to set.

Buy a carton of ready-made custard, a carton of long-life whipped cream and a jar of maraschino cherries (they’re in the bakery section near the hundreds and thousands and the muffin mixes). Buy some hundreds and thousands too. 

If you want to soup the custard up, pour a tot of Klipdrift into it and give it a stir. (Ask your uncle where the Klipdrift is.)

Pour the custard over the set jelly.

Pour the bought whipped cream on top.

Put some hundreds of thousands on top, dot a few maraschino cherries here and there, and pop it in the fridge.

You don’t know what hundreds and thousands are?

Okay. Maybe just buy a fruit cake. DM