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Strange holiday.

“In the 1780s, Great Britain adopted a brick tax to help pay for the wars with the American colonies. Bricks were taxed at 4 shillings per thousand.
In response, brick makers began to increase the size of their bricks. As a result, brick size can be used to date buildings.
It was fun to keep an eye out for these jumbo bricks while exploring the city! In this picture (borrowed from Wikipedia because I forgot to take pictures), pre-brick tax bricks were used in the house on the right, while the building on the left were made with oversized bricks.”

You can find this and other interesting limey facts at:
https://devonzuegel.com/post/field-notes-london-england

It is endearing to see the common man evade the taxcollector.

Tax collector – kinda like the reason olde tyme houses hang out over the street (called Jettying).

Apparently our modern representative governments, have convinced themselves the government(our elected kings)owns the land which it leases to you, owns the water that falls on it, springs from it, or passes through it, the airspace above it, and now the breathable atmosphere in and around it, so you really can’t avoid paying them in one way or another.

In the olden days you could evade a portion of the property taxes by building your home out over the property it sat on which were based only on the land upon which it sat.

Cats are weird:

https://twitter.com/videocats/status/1077745933184655360

Was it a green turkey?, I see those were wildly popular in Merry Olde this year.

We had lasagna, because, reasons. There’s a bit left over.

My nephew and his wife hosted the Family Christmas this year. They own a barbecue restaurant, and at Christmas they make tamales to sell—over 5000 tamales this year. But they saved some for us. Three kinds of tamales, a huge pot of chili, a giant dish of hot queso dip (the kind with hamburger, and onions & peppers), and a gallon of guacamole that I could have made a meal of with just a spoon.

There are no rules for a meal like this. I put one tamale in the center of my plate, and ladled chili over it. Then a ladle of queso, then I dropped large dollops of guacamole on top of that. Added some chips. It was delicious. After I thought for a little bit, and did it a second time. For dessert, I put guacamole on my last chip 🙂

my understanding is the Brits taxed any interior room with a doorway….hence the lack of closets and the door to the bathroom being out back…. not sure how folks got around the whole airing cupboard or why they just didnt go open floor plan…… satisfyingly odd place… and i truly enjoyed the 8 years i spent there…. (travel safety tip.. don’t try to drink Scotland dry. they keep making more… there’s a pretty good war story there)

I had a good chuckle when I saw your Boxing Day Santa, Mme. Ermine. Nice work!

Everything’s closed over there, yet over here everything’s open and retailers are pushing their post-Christmas sales. Buy! Buy! Buy! Save! Save! Save! It seems we have to spend money to save money. *scratches head*

We’ll have a fine meal tonight of leftovers from our Christmas Day feast of standing rib roast, mashed potatoes with lots of butter and sour cream, and steamed and buttered asparagus. And apple pie with vanilla gelato. Yum! The roast was so good that since they’re still on sale ($6.99/lb.) we’ll DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN THIS SATURDAY! YAY!

Uncle Al! at $6.99/lb., I’d pack my freezer with standing rib roasts! And uh—where was it you said you live? And do you make your own horseradish sauce?

@Deborah HH – Sarasota County, Florida. Sale is on at Publix until 10:00 p.m. EST tonight. But not to fret, it goes on sale several times a year usually right before a holiday.

Sorry, not a fan of horseradish sauce. There’s no accounting for tastes – I put black pepper on corn on the cob; it sticks OK if you use enough butter!

We are freezing most of the leftovers because we are still cooking the food that didn’t get cooked in time for Christmas dinner. Way overboard this year. Turkey, ham, fish, prawns, pork ribs … the list goes on…

Our Christmas dinner was just the two of us this year. On Christmas Eve, we roasted a chicken (beer can style) using a Bundt pan for the beer can, if that makes sense. Quartered onions and rough cut carrots and celery go in the pan bottom, along with some chicken broth. The spices and the chicken drippings flavor the vegetables while the skin gets really crispy. For sides we did some buttered parsnips which I love twice a year, along with garlic/bacon brussel sprouts. Cranberry relish (NOT that canned stuff!) and mashed potatoes are, of course, obligatory. Dessert was a golden fruitcake made the day after Thanksgiving, wrapped in cheesecloth and seeped in Cointreau.

Still, I might have traded it all for some of Deborah’s tamales and chili. They’re a Texas Christmas tradition that I don’t really understand except that I love them, done right. They’re one of those things where the ingredients are about as simple as you can get, but in the hands of somebody whose Aublita taught them how to make tamales, they’re magic.

Oh, and by the way, you do know that Santa did train to be a boxer in his younger days, right? Mrs. Claus made him give it up for a steady job.

https://www.thefightcity.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/v4100.jpg

A bronze turkey. It was very good. There’s so much left, though, I have difficulty hefting the plate out of the fridge.

I love Christmas tamales. 🙂

With left over turkey you make turkey enchiladas and freeze them in trays you can easily pop into the oven. They are delicious.