Katy and I were window shopping for stuff to put in this year’s Christmas display (think Santa and Yoda vs Stormtroopers and Daleks) when we came across this.
Tag: christmas
The holidays are over, back to reality now
The Christmas decorations are down. The tree and the village are packed away. It’s not snowing on my blog anymore and the counter has been reset to something else. The last two weeks have been hectic to say the least, but generally good. A full redux post will come later when I have time to write it all down, but for now pictures will have to suffice:
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/xmas_2011/
Heyho, heyho, it’s back to work I go.
Current Mood:
Sleepy
What I have cooked in the past 48 hours
Ham hock and chicken terrine wrapped in parma ham
Scotch eggs
Sausage rolls with wholegrain mustard or red onion chutney
Chicken wings
Mini yorkshire puddings stuffed with roast beef, horseradish and stilton
Pulled pork with cider BBQ sauce
Girdlebuster pie with chocolate ganache
sugar glazed apple fritters
This doesn’t include the prepackaged party food we got on clearance from Tesco nor the leftovers we still had from christmas. Foodwise, it’s been a good holiday :) Recipes will follow shortly.
[Edit] Now with pictures!
Current Mood:
Full
I officially declare Christmas
All the gifts are wrapped, the lists have been checked twice and there are carols playing on the ipod. I declare that it is now time to get pissed!
Baker’s helper
I’m making a Christmas cake and Bean’s my official taster/helper. Personally, I can’t stand xmas cake but I like making it so it works out ok.
Plus, it’s always fun to ask a 3-year old questions like “does this need more booze” and getting an emphatic “yeah!” as an answer :)
All planned out, over and done with!
In the past few weeks, I have been working on the planning of:
– the PST group xmas party
– the main EBI xmas party
– mince pies & mulled wine for 100 people at work
– booking 50 tickets for Stomp
– booking 150 tickets for a cinema screening
– getting 500 mugs printed for work
and a boatload of smaller tasks, none of which are actually my actual day job.
It’s been stressful, to say the least but the good news is that everything is now done and over. The office paella potluck went down a treat. It was held at the Great Chesterford community center and the comments about the food and the venue were uniformly positive (many thanks to the paella chefs!). The day had a rocky start with a trip to Addenbrookes A&E after Bean dropped a chair on his big toe but bounced back once the food started being served. We already had all of the food prepped and packed in the car, but there was a ton of last-minute stuff we needed to deal with. Still, with a few phone calls, everything got sorted out and in the end, we were in and out of Addenbrooked in about an hour and a half. I have to give mad props to the guys who helped clean the place up afterwards, it was a big help!
The EBI xmas party was last night, at La Raza in Cambridge. The comments I got on the night were also very positive, with people saying that it was a better party than in the past couple of years. I can personally vouch that the food was not only feckin’ plentiful, but very very good as well. Given all of my allergies, the fact that I was stuffed at the end of the night was a very positive fact IMO. The jalapeno poppers were great, but those beef and horseradish yorkie puds were pure crack! Plus, you know, 5 drinks for a fiver is a deal you can’t beat :) The only critiques I would give for the night was that the music the DJ put on wasn’t what I would have preferred for a xmas party. Other than that, and the totally unfounded rumours of a rigging of the raffle draw (hehe!), the night was a success in my books.
Becky had a bit of karmic retribution when Bean woke up at 11 and, realizing that we weren’t there, cried for an hour before getting himself back to bed. Becky was a bit frazzled when she called, I think…
So now, I only have one more week of work before I get some leave time to chill out and cook stuff for the holidays. I’ve already started tonight, with a braised beef topside and some chicken stock that I’m going to use to make a hamhock terrine in the near future. Katy and I are trying to finalize the list of all the recipes we want to try out for new years :)
The prezzies are mostly all bought and just need wrapping, so that’s a load off as well.
Go us, for being productive!
Current Mood:
Happy
Xmas holiday break, please come soon!
Between organising the group xmas paella, the EBI xmas party and various other events and cabs and mugs and groceries and presents and booze and whatnots, I’m getting a bit frazzled and I’m really looking forward to the holiday break.
The group paella is this weekend, the EBI xmas party is the week after that, and then I’m on holiday from the week after that still. And then it’s xmas, woohoo!
Still, we’ve managed to get a few bits of pre-xmas cheer already. Katy, Bean and I went to see the Victorian Christmas at Audley End house last weekend. Bean got to see Santa (again) and see real life reindeer, and a few not-so-real ones! The stable yard was really cool, because it had a Victorian market recreation, with people dressed up in period costume hawking period wares. There was a gentleman selling a miracle tonic who was simply hilarious.
Best quotes:
See that greyhound? It was a whippet before having some of my elixir!
See that hirsute man with the huge beard over there? He was bald before taking but a spoonful of my elixir! Now, he’s stuffed more than 12 cushions with his excess hair!
hehe :)
We also went to Leicester to see a Bill Bailey doing his Dandelion Mind show at De Montfort Hall. We’d seen in before in London but it changed quite a bit, and he’s always fun to see live. He completely lost the plot a few times when his microphone went batshit (hey! let’s disconnect the Hippie!) and when he tripped doing his Gary Newman “Cars” rendition on the honk organ. His cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” was brilliant though.
We also discovered some really cool (but stupidly expensive!) prints from Doug Hyde in a gallery in Leicester. We fell in love with one, but sadly, we didn’t have the £700 to buy it (it’s cheap, considering that the original is going for about £20,000). Still, dang.
Current Mood:
Tired
The tree is up and the village is done!
We have a ginormous xmas tree in our living room that will, hopefully, survive the cats and the bean unscathed. We have a xmas display that keeps on getting bigger and bigger despite my best efforts.
We still need to trim up the rest of the house, but Lenny the reindeer head is already up and we’ve made a good start :)
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/xmas_2011/decorations/
This weekend would have been perfect if the Bean wasn’t coughing and feverish :(
Current Mood:
Amused
It’s snowing on my blog!
The xmas season is officially underway :) We bought a giant xmas tree this weekend, we’re in the process of setting up our xmas display and it is now snowing on my blog.
Come on, let me hear a FA LA LA LA LA from the gallery!
Current Mood: Amused
Apparently, Santa thinks I’ve been a good boy this year.
So blogland, has Santa been generous this year? For our household, he has. Possibility overly so, as our credit card balances will probably reflect.
I got some new frying pans, a new cooks knife and a panini press (which has already gotten lots of use). I also got a new Kindle to replace my dying Sony reader, some movies on dvd and a media streaming box that can connect my NAS to the TV.
Katy tried to out-xmas me by buying me a motorcycle jacket but the kitchenaid mixer I got her trounced her plan :) She did buy the best ever gift though, a talking stuffed bacon plush. I’m bacon, oh yeah!
We also went a bit mad with the stocking staffers. I got some biscuits and chocolate, some smellies and various random kitchen implements.
So yeah, we need to do a bit of early spring cleaning to fit everything in the kitchen and everywhere else, but it’s all good.