To start with, we had to discuss whether we would hold the midwinter festival on the 22nd or 23rd of June, because in reality the sun reached its farthest northern Declination at 2.30 a.m. on the 23rd by the standard time which we were keeping.  We decided to hold it on the evening of the 22nd, this being the dinner time nearest the actual culmination.  A Buszard’s cake extravagantly iced was placed on the tea-table by Cherry-Garrard, his gift to us, and this was the first of the dainties with which we proceeded to stuff ourselves on this memorable day.  Although in England it was mid-summer we could not help thinking of those at home in Christmas vein.  The day here was to all intents and purposes Christmas Day; but it meant a great deal more than that, it meant that the sun was to come speeding back slowly to begin with, and then faster and faster until in another four months or so we should find ourselves setting out to achieve our various purposes.  It meant that before another year had passed some of us, perhaps all of us, would be back in civilisation taking up again the reins of our ordinary careers which, of necessity, would lead us to different corners of the earth.  The probability was that we should never all sit down together in a peopled land, for Simpson was bound to be racing back to India with Bowers and probably Oates, whose regiment was at Mhow; Gran would away to Norway, and the other Ubdugs to Australia.  One or two of us had been tempted to settle in New Zealand, and the old Antarctics amongst us knew how useless it had been to arrange those Antarctic dinners which never came off as intended.

But to return to the menu for Midwinter Day.  When we sat down in the evening we were confronted with a beautiful water-colour drawing of our winter quarters, with Erebus’s gray shadow looming large in the background, from the summit of which a rose-tinted smoke-cloud delicately trended northward, and, standing out from the whole picture a neatly printed tablet which proclaimed the nature of this much-looked-forward-to meal: 

Consomme Seal. 
Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. 
Horseradish Sauce. 
Potatoes a la mode and Brussels Sprouts. 
Plum Pudding.  Mince Pies. 
Caviare Antarctic. 
Crystallised fruits.  Chocolate Bonbons. 
Butter Bonbons.  Walnut Toffee. 
Almonds and Raisins.

Wines.

Sherry, Champagne, Brandy Punch, Liqueur. 
Cigars, Cigarettes, and Tobacco. 
Snapdragon. 
Pineapple Custard.  Raspberry jellies.

and what was left of the Buszard’s cake!

The menu was, needless to say, Wilson’s work, the exquisite dishes Clissold produced, the maitre d’hotel was Birdie, and Cherry-Garrard the producer of surprises in the shape of toys which adorned the Christmas Tree that followed on the dinner.  Everybody got something from the tree, which was in reality no tree at all, for it was a cleverly constructed dummy, with sticks for branches and coloured paper leaves.  Still, it carried little fairy candles and served its purpose well.