A Christmas feast in January

I am standing in Tesco with Martín on January 2nd 2012. He loves supermarkets; perusing the aisles for things we'll never eat, need or use. I am used to this, and usually work round this by sending him off on a very specific mission, which takes an age, but means I can get the majority of the shop out of the way while he thinks about buying 18 cans of peaches.

But yesterday I could not budge him from a super-saver-end-of-aisle-Christmas-is-over-fest.

Salmon, cooked hams, fine cheeses all on offer. He couldn't get over it. He had to buy them. And there were three things in his favour, which means he won.

The first is simple: they were things we love to eat. Our weekends are not complete without a King's Breakfast of salmon, spinach, mushrooms and eggs piled high on toast laden with cream cheese. As pork addicts, everything pig related gets a full seeing to in our house and nothing is spared. And cheese? Martín would eat a whole whale carcass if it was covered in the stuff.



Keep it simple: fondue for Christmas dinner

 The second was that we don't have a normal Christmas. There's no platter of little biscuits with salmon; no turkey and stuffing; no ham and potatoes; no Christmas pudding and cheese board. By going skiing, we eliminate ourselves from the supermarket slog for Christmas food and escape to the mountains where we let ourselves be satisfied with a simple pile of French beef, a pot of hot oil, some dips and chips. Therefore, come the New Year, we are not already bored of these foods which were overbought and have been sitting wrapped in foil like fallen asteroids in the fridge ever since.

The third reason why Martín got his wicked bargain way was because these foods were half price and half again. True bargains you can only dream of before Christmas when these items are on your shopping list.

And then it got me thinking. Why don't people have their Christmas food feasts in January? For those that love the foods more than the festival, it's so much cheaper come the post-Christmas price meltdown. Christmas can still be in the spirit of giving, time with loved ones, and you can do that with any foods you like! What do you fancy? Chinese? Go for it! Italian's your thing? Why not! There is nothing that binds us to the turkey and ham and stuffing sandwiches aside from the fact we've always done them. But with January's perfect prices for all those foods, why not delay those feasts?

Just don't tell Tesco.