Home alone in Rome

Alone for Christmas. Again. But being alone isn't the same as lonely. Besides, I do have company: my lovely dog, Ella, and my gorgeous asthmatic cat, Bud. They are perfect company. It's just the world outside my home that dictates Christmas is for family, Christmas is a time for sharing, it's a time for togetherness.
In Italy it is said that Christmas is for family, New Year is for friends.

This year, I got myself a tree, a small wooden beast from a popular Scandinavian home goods store. It's so small the cat isn't interested.
Then I have to figure what to eat. Leisure time is easily dealt with in the age of Netflix and a surplus of unread books weighing down my bedside table.
Italian Christmas dictates fish for the 24th and something heavier and richer for the 25th such as roast lamb.
I go fish wise for Christmas Eve, a smoked salmon mousse with pickled vegetables. Then spoil it, by adding a chicken parfait under an orange jelly with beetroot oatcakes. Parfait=perfection.

I have a pink bubbly, a gift from a neighbour, in this year of Christmas gift dearth - it would seem a belated punishment from close family for my absence at the yuletide table.
The 25th I opted for vegetarian, the parfait was a lapse, and made a pumpkin, garlic, leek pie with a walnut crust. The pink bubbly had run out so I opened a Valdobbiene dry prosecco. Prosecco goes with everything, right?

I then moved on to dessert. It was a first, a yule log :chocolate ganache, chestnut mascarpone cream filling on a cacao Swiss roll. Each step had been a culinary pitfall: mix the beaten eggs softly into their yolks, roll the sponge while hot without splitting it, whip the cream to the right spreadable consistency, then there was the ganache. It was at first too runny, a lack of double cream was the culprit, but mixing the runny cream to some mascarpone saved the day. The ganache lay on top of its log and let funnels be traced in it to mimic bark. It turned out a beauty. It was a shame not to have any one to share it with.

The day after, Santo Stefano here, is a national holiday. The weather was clement so it was as good a day as any to walk the dog. New Year is just around the corner. What can I make? I'll still be alone but a belated gift has lifted my spirits.