Citrus Night, Holy Fizz

IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!



I love Christmas.  It really is my favourite time of the year.  I love the Christmas tree (I strung popcorn this year, it looks pretty cool), I love the giving and everyone's friendly to one another (unless you're reaching for the last "Princess Charm School" Barbie in Toys R Us that I happen to also be reaching for at exactly the same time then I'm sorry, its handbags at dawn, shoulders down, get out of my way, you are not my friend b***h.  Hell, I promised!).  Most importantly, Le Pose is now 3 and is at the age where she is able to enjoy the innocence and magic of Christmas.  Tonight, for example, is Christmas Eve so we happily sprinkled magic reindeer dust on the patio (I've no idea what that is or how it ended up in my house), put the "Welcome Santa" sign out in the garden and then wrote Santa a welcome note and put the special Christmas Cookies (I have been baking 3 days straight....), milk and carrot out for Santa and his reindeer*.  She is so excited she wouldn't sleep and finally fell asleep somewhere around 10pm.  I remember that excitement and I love seeing her begin to experience it.

Of course as soon as she was in bed we began our own Christmas cheer.

Of course I mean booze.

One of the cookie recipe's (this one) required the zest of 2 lemons and an orange and so I had 3 naked citrus fruits being offensive in the kitchen.  Something had to be done....

So I made a cocktail.

The recipe - Citrus Night, Holy Fizz (by ME!)

Juice of 2 medium sized lemons

Juice of 1 medium sized orange

3/4 cup caster sugar

1 tsp mixed spice (I use my own mix which you can find the recipe for here)

Sparkling wine (prosecco or cava is fine)

1. Put everything (not the fizz) into a sauce pan and place over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves (keep stirring).  Keep the mixture bubbling (simmering) for between 5-10 minutes.  Pour into a heatproof dish to cool.

2. Once cool, put about a teaspoon of the syrup (which should have thickened nicely by now) into the bottom of a wine glass/champagne flute (I didn't want to use my crystal champagne flutes - I randomly don't have any others! - so used a wine glass) and top up with fizz.  Give it a bit of a stir and drink!

Nicely aromatic and fizzy, its a great little change to our usual Christmas Mimosa and yes, this one's all out of my own little head.

xx Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night! xx

*She has also learned all about the nativity at nursery and we have also been talking about the important baby born at Christmas.