Christmas plans

Are you travelling for Christmas or working through the holidays? I finish up for the year on Thursday and things are already feeling festive. Right now I'm snacking on some Christmas cake that I made in November. I finally cut it open over the weekend to divvy up between friends as gifts. And tonight we'll be putting up our mini Christmas tree!

Our plans for Christmas are pretty simple - we'll be staying in town and waiting for the rest of my family to join us. My brother and his wife will be coming round for a Christmas Eve dinner, all the way from London. I ordered a ham for the holidays and am thinking of serving it glazed and warm with soft buttered rolls and beer, inspired by my friend Danie :)

Christmas Day will be a lunch at my sister's place and I'll be bringing a Christmas cake to share, and some homemade mince pies too. I'm also really looking forward to Christmas brekkie at home, which is usually coffee, mangoes and panettone with Tony before we exchange presents.

We've also just marked three years in Canberra with a handful of end of year rituals. We brought these spice cookies to May and Sam's an annual Christmukkah party, which was a bagel brunch. And we ate the most delicious meal at Sarah and Mark's place for our annual Christmas dinner, this time with their daughter Zoe as a first time guest.

They made Samin Nosrat's buttermilk chicken, Annabel Crabb's glass potatoes (they're a revelation), and I made my first ever pavlova roll with raspberries and cream. It was the last recipe I had to test for the year and it was a triumph!

Finally, let's talk Christmas books! I secretly love the days after Christmas, where everyone's back in their own homes and it's time for naps, summer fruit and books. I'm planning to treat myself to Sally Rooney's Normal People and Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales.

Plum cake + an exciting new podcast

I've been thinking about family rituals this week, since my sister moved to Canberra. Maybe we'll have a standing Friday night dinner somewhere local, like the family in The Squid and the Whale. We've already promised my niece a girls' day out, including "a meal at a restaurant" at her request (four year olds!).

I have the best memories of going to my grandparent's house for dinner as a kid. They used to own a Chinese restaurant in Sydney and had a servery built into their home - a little hatch that connected the kitchen to the dining room. With dinner covered, my parents, aunts and uncle took turns bringing dessert.

A summer plum cake is becoming a new family ritual. I made one last year, using fruit that a friend brought into the office to share. My extended family divvied it up on a balmy afternoon, after my grandfather's wake. When the plums appeared in the office again this week I realised we were nearing the anniversary of his death.

I baked this dimply plum cake (it's jewel-toned and jammy) to share with my family who are in town to help with my sister's move. We managed to demolish the whole thing on an equally hot day, this time in my sister's new lounge room. It's a simple tradition that makes me think of my grandfather, and our ever-growing family.

On a very different note, I am so excited about the Making Obama podcast, which comes out next month. Making Oprah was such a joyous and fascinating podcast series, and I am sure this next series will be just as good. I heard the reporter, Jenn White, speak at a podcast conference in Sydney last year and was blown away by her ideas and humanity (I even plucked up the courage to ask a question). You can listen to a preview of the new series here :)