Christmas day!

Lots of activity on the ship. Carol singing on the Grande Promenade last night, a Santa Clause Parade this morning. The kids (that is, our singers and dancers, not the little f.....s who have invaded the ship this week) running around wrapping each others' presents and exchanging them.

And food. Lots of food.

A Norwegian buffet was featured today at both the midday and evening meals. I don't remember this from last year. Anyway, it was beautifully presented, with some amazing vegetable sculptures (you'd have to see them) decorating the tables.

For appetizers there was smoked salmon and whitefish, pickeled herring, pickled beets, cheese trays (with a strange, but very interesting mild, brown-coloured Norwegian cheese I've never heard of before), pate, shrimp, pigs knuckles, cured leg of pork, a salad buffet, and more.

The main course at the midday meal was mostly meat – chicken, fricadells, sausages, poached haddock, boiled potatoes, a kind of perogi-like turnover, mashed rutabaga (I think – it was good in any case), cauliflower and broccoli, and so on.

The main course at dinner was more substantial, with a big roast of beef (with Yorkshire pudding), roast turkey, poached haddock again, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and other vegetables, and four kinds of composed salad – Greek, coleslaw, macaroni, and potato – in addition to the regular salad bar.

A big gingerbread house surrounded by baskets of figs, fruit, and candies was arranged next to the desert buffet. For desert we had our choice of (or multiple choices of) cheesecake, a fruit compote with a crispy topping you could put ice cream on, ice cream, various other cakes, and the ever-present cookies.

And finally, an unlimited supply of ice-cold beer and chilled white wine.

The only things missing were putdekaka (or however you spell it – Norwegian potato flatbread) and ludefisk (although maybe the smoked, peppered white fish was ludefisk).

Not bad, eh? And no preparation or clean-up! Just show up and gorge youself silly.

I know I said I'd never write about the food again, but this is an exceptional case.



The Gingerbread House

P.S. We were at sea all day Christmas day, and the sea-phone lines were all clogged up. I made hundreds of attempts to acquire a line, but succeeded only once. I was able to talk to my mother until the line was unceremoniously cut off. So. Today I will try to call everyone on my cell phone (we're in Port Canaveral today).