Poncetastic 2016

[WaitingForEgg]

Ok this thread may commence from midnight in honour of Fellatio. I sadly abandoned last years mid run due to pre-eclampsia and early birth of my December baby and therefore fully intend to throw myself fully into this years festivities:

"OK, first of all, I know it's still September by we need to start this thread now because as you all know, having a truly Poncetastic Christmas involves precision planning, strategy, bravery, heroics, and frequently martyrdom. A bit like the war in Afghanistan, only with nicer food and sparkly shoes.

So, if you, like me, actually want to make the next twelve weeks of your life a misery by hand-crafting your cards, finding a huge bucket for Nigella's turkey in brine, pickling pears, shrivelling oranges in a low oven for those rustic au naturel decorations, dragging half a holly bush back from the woods, and just generally being a smug annoying jobsworth ponce, join me on this thread.

Feel free to post photos of previous tree-trimming, cake icing or table centrepiece triumphs, discuss this year's bauble colour themes, debate the merits of Delia versus Gordon, road-test a selection of canapes and cocktails, (all in the line of duty) and link to lovely inspirational photos/craft ideas for a truly Poncetastic Christmas.

Warning: If your idea of a good Christmas involves Pizza, ITV, gravy granules or anything with 'Aunt Bessies' on the packet, this is not the thread for you".

Let's surpass all poncestastic pasts please

Wow. Wow. Can I have the Christmas spice liquor recipe? And the crackers.

Please. Thank uou.

I don't like mint but really want to make that bark.

Crackers
4 tablespoons olive oil , plus extra for greasing
400 g plain flour
1 good pinch sea salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
2 spoons of mixed poppyseed/linseed/pumpkinseed/sunflower seed

Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Rub one large or two small baking sheets with a little olive oil.
In a bowl, mix together the flour, salt, pepper and chilli flakes. Pour in the olive oil and stir it in with a fork. Continue stirring while you slowly pour in about 200ml cold water. You might not need it all – use just enough to form a ball of dough. You don’t want it to get too wet!
Roll out the dough into one or two rectangles, as thinly as you can. Place the roll(s) on to the prepared baking sheet(s). Drizzle with a little olive oil, and sprinkle with some more salt and chilli flakes if you like. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes until golden and crispy enough to snap when broken.
To serve, break the large cracker(s) into irregular pieces. Any leftovers can be stored in a tin.

For the Lemon and Thyme crackers omit the chilli and add in 1 teaspoon lemon zest and 1 teaspoon dried/fresh thyme

They keep for a good few weeks in airtight container!

Christmas spice liquor
large bottle of vodka
1 tbsp cardamom pods
1/2 tbsp cloves
1/2 star annise
2 sitcks cinnamon
rind of 1/4 orange
1 tbsp dried cranberries
1 tsp of vanilla extract
4 tbsp brown sugar

Pop all in bottle and infuse for 2 months or so, put through britta filter to get out any little bits, if the flavor is too strong/you want it to go further let down with more vodka!

The crackers is an adapted Jamie recipe, I cut into christmassy shapes rather than having big sheets of irregular shapes, but only so I can divvy them up more easily!

The liquor is made up, and my grandma was mad for it last year!

Hairspraybabe I want to be your friend. Those hampers sound amazing,but I'm going to nip over to Mallowmarshmallow for cheese. None of my lot appreciate cheese

Hairspraybabe I am so impressed. Can you please make me feel a little better about my comparativley unponcey Christmas by telling me your children are all old enough to help, you have a cleaner and are at home full time?! I fantasise about Christmas on your level, but I would struggle to do half as much.

I'll settle for weeping silently into my bramble gin surrounded by tinsel and aunt Bessie's wrappers...

I can't believe its taken until nearly OCtober for me to join the Poncetastic thread. I'm normally on it the minute someone starts it! In the throes of toddler parenting so this year may be somewhat different.

Previous poncing I've done has been crochet heavy. I've made garlands, cuddly reindeer and this wreath (any excuse to share it again!) Flavoured vodka and own mincemeat are my food limits - I prefer to find receipes and hand them over to DH, who as a chemist, is basically a chef..!

This year I'm challenging myself to a homemade Christmas, in that all recipients of gifts shall find themselves in possession of something I've crafted. In the case of some recipients this may be a tree dec and a proper shop bought gift, but it still counts! Thanks to christmasseacow I've started knitting and have two tiny jumpers so far. Hoping to get enough for a string of them!

So far I've done:
Crocheted hat, mittens and snood for DM.
Liberty lawn cotton nightie for DMIL
Shark blanket for godson
Mermaid blanket for goddaughter

Still to do various crocheted and/or knitted hats for most other folk.

cookie Alas I have no children yet, it is something we are looking into IYKWIM. I imagine once/if they do come about then my poncing will be severely reduced. I have a tiny house that doesn't need much cleaning because me and DP work full time so aren't there to make mess much!

Massive Christmas ponce here, I'm forced by miserable friends/family to avoid all mention of Christmas until 1st December at the earliest, they know not that my Christmas planner is already full swing and that i write in it nightly before hastily stuffing it back under the bed.....
I've just stocked up on paper Pom poms and honeycomb balls from sainsburys because they were selling them off for £1. I must hide them in my 'Christmas cupboard' that NOBODY knows of because I only found it last year whilst renovating the attic.....

Oh and I've also made my own gin, from vodka strangely enough....

Hairspray- sorry I hope my last post didn't come over as insensitive. I should think before I type.

No no- even when I was living in a tiny flat pre kids and working full time I never managed anything like your incredible ponce. You are my Christmas idol!

cookie no not too worry, it's a perfectly sane assumption it is mumsnet after all

I am a terribly competative and smug poncer, love to be the best present giver and the best party host!

Aargh trying to catch up but ran out of time. Had to go and get beans on toast after seeing mallow's pic of that cheeseboard

Great ideas. Must make myself some gin. If it's not ready until January, that's fine.

cookie and hairspray. What a good exchange. I like to see people playing nicely. Especially on the Christmas board
No sarcasm meant at all. I can't hack AIBU and have to hide out on gentler threads

Wow some lovely Pinterest boards too

Todays effort... I added a splash of sherry to the herb jelly, make it a bit more festive

Hairspray

They look beautiful! Like Christmas baubles.

runs in, breathless< Am I late already?!? Crappy start to the Ponce-season.

Will post pictures of my garlands of last year as soon as I can find them. That's my main strength (accumulating loads of deccies and exasperating DH with the storage thereof), but I also rather enjoy sewing things, foraging and baking/decorating biccies. (I started a fred on this board a couple of weeks back about my UK -translation for the Wilton cookie recipe). I simply can't get enthused about making a pud when marky-sparky do such nice ones, but might try doing flavoured boozes. cant guarantee they'll end up in other people's stockings, mind

I'm so irked, though! (Hope you don't mind me ranting - where else could I go?!?) I started making stockings about 4 years ago. Didn't finish them that year, and haven't found them since. They were gorgeous, though - lush, opulent fabrics, great trims, a lot of hand-sewing >weeps< We've moved house since then and have done several re-jigs of our crap boxes of stuff and the feckers are nowhere to be seen! Grrr.

Oh, but here's where I've got [probably] all of you beat: four extra days of pressure, as our Big Day is the 21st - four days before most of ye lot!

My planning started in last year's after Christmas sales. Picked up some decorating bargains - anybody else do that a lot? [family]

that is. Auto-correct will learn before too long.

How do you put the santa hats on?!?!

Hairspray, those jars look beautiful. What's in the ones that look like magic potion are orangey?

Just add f to the front of the word. fsmile, fgrin, except with the square brackets, of course. Enjoy!

Thanks guys! The jars are Lakeland special, and in them is Chilli Jelly (the redish orange ones) and Herb jelly (the paler yellowy ones) Chilly Jelly is a Nigella recipie and I posted a link to the herb jelly recipe the other day.

Marking place to have a good read

They're really pretty, Hairspray. Now all you have to do is come up with a green one!

Its really hard to get a nice green colour without using food colouring, and then it goes really vivid and way too bright, shreks bogies rather than festive green

Hey, I really like Shrek the Halls! Donkey's deccies ain't got nuttin' on mine. Apart from the interpretive dancers....