Festive Funtimes 2014

I told you December was going to be a busy one. My Baby Bro turned 30 and middle-sister-in-law turned 29 and we celebrated en masse. We had dinners and nights out, and in, with friends and family to celebrate the season. It was fun with a captial Fuh.

Tree decorating, Fake Christmas, various work parties, a gathering Chez Griffith and the usual Hale-Griffith-Harvey five-day festivities incorporating all our Christmas traditions, including the Potage Cup soup competition (see the winners on my previous post here: http://sugarplumslipper.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-potage-cup-2014.html), stockings, house-hopping, table singing, bells and whistles session and sofa-surfing, this year the Godfamily also joined for some seasonal fun.

Festive WAGs

Festive Luvvies

Festive Besties

Christmas Eve gets started

Christmas Eve outfit



BBQ Elf! No oven big enough for 100 sausages!

Starting the day with stockings and champagne

Family wrapping paper, by Joanna!



Games, music and singing! Christmas isn't about presents, it's about WINNING!!!

General unwrapping not permitted until after dinner!



Fave day of the year: Films, fizz, food and family all in gingerbread onesies!



I've spent this past festive week with my nearest and dearest and hanging out on my sofa playing with all my new toys. It's been truly lovely.

Next up is New Year's Eve.

New Year's Eve is one of my favourites. It's a time for spending with those we love, reminiscing about the times we've spent together and planning our futures together.  And dressing up, of course.

Which means one last outfit to plan...

The Potage Cup 2014

The Potage Cup results are in... It was a Griffith one-two!

First and Second place went to Mr G's middle sister Kate who we think stole the show with her Ham and Barley broth and homemade oatcakes and Mr G who came a pretty close second with his Neeps and Tatties soup, with haggis croutons!

Third was Cousin Jo with "Piping Hot" Beetroot and Curly Kale soup (with both Scottish and festive "pipers piping"), fourth Daddy Bear curiously with Polish Hot Cucumber soup, fifth yours truly (amazingly!) with Cranachan soup and sixth Uncle David, quite rightly so with his "Defiance Soup".

The scoring

This year's scoring system was as follows:

• Taste – 10 points
• Christmas Spirit – 10 points
• Presentation – 5 points
• Texture – 5 points
• Originality – 5 points
• "Comebackability" – 5 points

And in honour of the big news from this year, the wild card category was:

• Scottishness - 10 points

The entries

Soup 1: Hot beetroot and curly kale soup. Note the 11 pipers piping. Both festive and Scottish

Soup 2: "In England's Green and Pleasant Land" Soup. Content, except for "defiance" unknown.

Soup 3: Highland ham, mushroom and barley broth with homemade oatcakes.

Soup 4: Polish Cucumber soup. Festiveness and Scottishness added as sides, not ingredients.

Soup 5: Neeps and Tatties soup with Haggis Croutons

Soup 6: Cranachan soup!

The results

 

Second place

Winner!

The Winner's Crown.

Until next year....

 

Festive snippets - December 2013

Today was a back-to-work day. After a week of sofa-surfing, onesie-wearing and food-gorging I was almost looking forward to going outside, putting on proper clothes and getting back in to a routine.

Less than an hour in I was pining for my PJs and reminiscing about the last month of festivities.

Destination Christmas on Oxford Street

It all started with a trip to Oxford Street to see the decorations and drink Christmassy cocktails and the purchase of our first real tree (which I decorated whilst wearing my gingerbread man onesie and watching A Muppet's Christmas Carol, of course!). Oh how gloriously it fragranced our house! I'm gonna miss that tree!

Our first real tree!

Decorating the tree with Snow Pooh

Then, the family took off en masse to visit the Christmas markets in Munich for gluwein and lebkuchen. Yummy.

Munich!

After that, it was party, after drink catch up, after festive lunch, dinner and brunch gatherings... which of course required a whole suite of Christmas jumpers and sparkly accoutrements.

Christmas jumper number one at The Cortiina Hotel, Munich

Christmas jumper number 2 in the loos at The Zetter



Christmas Jumper Day with 5/10 of Pineapple Club

Christmas party at The Corinthia

Festive afternoon tea at The Covent Garden Hotel

It all came to a head with a festive BBQ and the Annual Potage Cup, Chez Griffith on Christmas Eve, lots of fun, food and family time, with both families on Christmas Day and DVDs and cocktails on Boxing Day while Mr G slept off his night shift.

Our Christmas Eve party invite - festive knitwear mandatory!

Yummy bespoke sausages on the BBQ!

Christmas jumper number 3 on Christmas Eve

Gold and silver trophies for The Potage Cup winner and runner up

Winning - AT LAST!

I finished the festive season with a "survivors" meal with the family (for those still going/remaining) on the Friday and then a girlie outing to see The. Most. Amazing. piece of theatre I've ever seen (and I expect it'll never be bettered): The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable, by Punchdrunk. Go see it. Just go and see it.

Stockings on Christmas morning

Christmas Tree Chez Hale

Festive Griffs!



I added some snuggly socks to my glitzy Christmas Day outfit

Onesies, films and fizz on Boxing Day...

We ended the year with good friends, Mexican food, drinks, games and laughter as we saw the new year in in a slightly more sedate style than last year!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve

We hosted our first Christmas gathering in our new home and joined our families together for their first festive party. We broke from the standard tradition of Christmas Eve at my parents' and invited everyone round to play.

We decided against a sit down meal, and went for cocktails and canapes, followed by a buffet, the annual soup competition and then dessert, some very special bubbly and then tea and sofa snuggling.

Mini cherry and dark chocolate trifles. HIGHLY dangerous!

"Champagne flutes" for my mum and aunts - to avoid drunk and disorderliness

Stressed Chef!

Joint effort on the salmon!

BUBBLES!

Special bubbles!

Posh Squash... for use in alcoholic drinks only!

Soup tasting in the Potage Cup 2012

We worked hard on the prep, we grafted all night, we hardly ate any of the food we prepared and drank barely a drop. We collapsed in to bed at 3am, shattered, but it was worth it to have all our loved ones together, in our new home, at Christmas... except Kate Louise - we missed you. Lucky we had Fake Christmas last week.

Fake Christmas last week with Kate Louise and Lucy Jayne!

Could this be a new tradition in the making?

Maybe....