Festive Fun - Day 18 - Sue Welfare

Sue Welfare is here today for Day 18 of Festive Fun Author Advent

What is your favourite Christmas Carol/festive song?

 Oh there are such great songs at Christmas! I love traditional Carols and the chance for a good old sing-song, so, Oh Come All Ye Faithful (with someone piping away at the descant in the background) and Deck the Halls

Favourite childhood memory for the season?

Just the not-being-able-to-sleep, excited happy buzz that comes from all that expectation - not really for the presents,  just for the whole day being different from the rest of the year and sharing it will funny old great uncles and mad old great aunts that we never seemed to see at any other time. I love Crackers and also then (back in the mists of time) you could only get tangerines and clementines at Christmas, so my dad would buy a box from the market and bring them home for us kids, and the smell of them was fabulous!

Tree – Real or Artificial? Why?

Real ... it's the smell of it and the feel of the needles and finding the odd dry leaf in amongst the branches. We live in an old Sunday school - the ceilings are really high, so we don't have any other decorations just a really tall tree, decked with strings of twinkling lights and all sorts of things we have collected over the years - including bright tangerine twinkly stars we bought on holiday in Cyprus and a snowman that my husbands stepson made 25 years ago!! 

Bucks Fizz or Mulled Wine or other?

Since we've been together, Phil and I have always decked the tree listening to music and drinking Baileys, either together or with family and friends and made it a real occasion - for me it marks the start of our Christmas!

Mince pie or Choc Yule Log?

Mince pies - they're not as sweet or sticky, and are handy to have in the cupboard to warm through when people come round.

Christmas dinner – Turkey or Beef or other?

We often have a big chicken, but have also had beef, lamb, even pork, as we all love cold meat with pickles and bubble and squeak on Boxing day! 

Lunch has been demolished and the dishwasher is on....do you walk, sit down for Eastenders and Queen’s speech or have another tradition for after lunch?

We usually sit up the table and talk, maybe with the TV on in the background, but everyone round the table, chatting, with a glass of wine and good food is my idea of the perfect Christmas. If my boys are all home they usually set up a post-luncheon game of Monooply - but I try to avoid it these days as they play to the death, no quarter given!!!

Sue's new book out is due out in Spring next year (March) called 'Cooking up a Storm'

Photo courtesy of the author

  

Find Sue Welfare on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/sue.welfare

Thank you, Sue

DizzyC