Kim and I were working adjoining subs last night and the guilt this caused finally prompted me to write about a magical Christmas her, I and Teresa spent together almost two years ago. Pictures were taken and I’ve been meaning to post them forever. If you’re in operations and junior on the railway, you work at Christmas. That’s just the way it is. It has its benefits. Double-time and a half would be one. Another would be Christmas dinner. Those of us who end up working are treated to Christmas dinner made by the kitchen at the Palliser. It comes with all the fixings including real cranberry sauce (not glorped out of a can) and my personal favourite, traditional plum pudding. Dinner is delivered on Christmas Eve as well as Christmas Day.
Because we work shift work, dinner is not only served once. It’s brought in at 1500, 1900 and 2300 to accommodate all shifts. If you’re a Crew Dispatcher (we all were at the time) you actually end up getting fed twice in a shift. I’ve never eaten so much food in my life. By the end of the Christmas day shift we all had multiple layers of the same meal digesting and the thought of stopping never entered our minds. Anybody’s who has ever been a student understands; free food is free food.
Eventually the hallucinating started and Kim was sweet-talking her mashed potatoes and gravy. “Come on potatoes, you can squish into the cracks between the turkey and then I can eat more chocolate log.”
Clearly, the potatoes listened because we all bellied up to the buffet for dessert. As if plum pudding wasn’t enough, there was also Bernard Callebaut chocolate mousse in the shape of a festive Yule log. The sixth log of the two day marathon was sitting untouched and Kim decided that there was no need to share.
The rest of the evening was spent arcing about trying not to fall asleep. We solved this by walking around, taking pictures and of course, eating more dinner.
Christmas in the NMC, it’s a magical time.