Tony Pov

Christmas Day, every year it's bloody chaos, (which was ironic because I only had Daisy, rather than a small army of children), from buying the presents, to wrapping said presents in time, to opening of everything and remembering to not let the Santa secret out, (I have been very close to spilling the beans on that one a few times before I actually told Daisy).

Though it was worth it to see Daisy look so happy, even though shit had hit the fan when it came to her mother, (and I might have been so overcome with emotion that my glasses fogged up a little bit), (I know that it's ok to cry, but Christmas Day was the wrong day for that).

I will be honest and say that I really didn't celebrate Christmas as an adult before I had Daisy, (in which 30 year old me dreaded her first Christmas, I'm not gonna lie to you), as Christmas was just always an excuse for my Dad to day drink and it made him angrier, (he was already angry enough without the alcohol).

Anyway, I was cooking Christmas dinner, (well I use the term cooking very very loosely, ok), and I don't know what I did wrong, (as I'm not a cook), but I somehow destroyed most of the dinner it was so burnt, (somehow the roasties survived), (please don't ask how this worked as I don't bloody know that).

I rang my Mum as I didn't know what I was supposed to do now that the dinner was completely fucked, (and it was all my own fault), (plus sometimes you just need advice from your own Mum, alright), and I wanted to try and fix it here.

"Merry Christmas Tony!"
"Merry Christmas Opal, yeah where's Mum?"
"Mam's in the kitchen-"
"Can you please put her on?"
"Why?"
"Because I burnt the fucking Christmas dinner, alright Smart arse"
"Ok, I'm putting her onto you now Mr cranky pants"
"Oh piss off Opal"
"Nah thanks"

So Opal eventually passed the phone to Mum, and even though I knew that she wasn't really much better than me at cooking, (I remember how bad some of her dinners were), Mum at least knew how to salvage a dinner or two, you know, (as she was parenting and shit for decades).

"Tony, what happened?"
"I burnt the Christmas dinner Mum"
"Ok, first things first, did anything from the dinner survive?"
"Yes the roasties did"
"Good, so you put more roasties on and you call it a day"
"Mum-"
"Tony darling, don't worry about it, your first Christmas dinner was better than my first"
"Thanks Mum"
"You're welcome Darling"

So I put on some more roasties, as I was trying to salvage a dinner here, (trying being an important word in this conversation, I'll have you know), and somehow, (as I will remind us all, I'm not a cook), I actually pulled this whole thing off, (by some miracle), so I called Daisy down for dinner, and then we had it.

"Daddy"
"Yeah Baby"
"What happened to the dinner?"
"I burnt it Darling"
"Ok Daddy"

I probably should be concerned that Daisy was ok with me burning dinner, but I wasn't, yes, for somebody that didn't celebrate Christmas as an adult until Daisy was born, I took it weirdly seriously, (though that could've been to try and make sure that her Christmas's growing up were nothing like what mine were as a child), but I was glad that my lack of cooking skills didn't ruin Christmas for her here.

Anyway, we sat and enjoyed our roasties, as you do, was this traditionally Christmasy?, probably not, but I think it was one of the better Christmases that I've ever had, (to my knowledge anyway), like there was no pressure for it to be a perfect Christmas, though the pressure thing could have been because Christmas was always shit throughout my childhood and I didn't want that for Daisy.

"Daddy"
"Yeah Baby"
"Can we keep the roasties as Christmas dinner every year?"
"Would you really want that?"
"Yeah!"
"Ok then, that's what we'll do from now on"

Was it weird that roasties were the thing that we wanted to eat every Christmas?, probably, but you know what, fuck it roasties taste really nice and I'm here for it, (yes, I, an at the time 35 year old man, was here for just having roasties), and yes, this actually became our Christmas tradition, and I'm not mad about it.

So yeah, I'm not the best cook as you can tell, but a Christmas tradition did come from my shitty cooking, which was a total bloody accident but a day a year for you to just eat something you wanna eat it's not totally bad for you.