It's poncetastic 2019!

[NerosFiddle]

Since no one has started it yet, I thought I would.

Happy Rudolph Day

So come on, show us yours!

I'm onto another cross stitch.

I want to make mince pies, but I'm not sure we have the freezer space just yet! I'll investigate though. I'd make brownies too if I had room (too many allotment runner beans!).

I want to get ahead a bit, but will have to wait a few weeks until we've eaten more frozen veg, I think.

My cranberry vodka is beautiful. I can recommend it (I need to hide it so I have some left at Christmas!).

Oops. Erroneous DD photo there! Not sure what happened. I'll leave it as you can't see her face!

Made dd2’s favourite ice cream this morning .
Chantilly Cream with broken meringues .
We serve it with melted Mars Bar sauce !

These posts are making me hungry!
Love the baubles and the DD reading a Christmas catalogue.

I bought a long string of fairy lights from charity shop yesterday to light up Halloween ghosts. Wish it would stop bloody raining

Mince pies. Freeze raw? Freeze cooked? Freeze raw but do the egg wash and sugar when they go in the oven?

Cooked here. Then just heat from frozen for about 20 mins.

I freeze pies half cooked, so cooked enough to get out of the tin but not yet starting to colour. Or with only the base cooked if that needed blind baking.

Ideas for table presents would be appreciated, I'm unreasonable excited about finally having Christmas at home this year so I'm going full on ponce.

I've ordered mini personalised sacks similar to the photo and roughly the same size, what sort of things would you put in them for adults and teenagers? They're sort of in place of crackers.

Miniature booze;
Lottery ticket;
Nail varnish;
Sweets;
Savoury snacks;
Chocolate Santa;
Little wooden toy;
Puzzles.

And that's my limit!

I like what about things like- nail polish? Miniature spirits? Stationary items? Depending on how well you think this would go down it can be fun to do a keep/swap game so everyone opens theirs one at a time and they can either keep or swap their item (I've seen this done with secret Santa and it was great fun)

You can get little wines too, for people who aren't into spirits. Or beer. I can't tell if the bags are big enough for a 330ml bottle.

nowordforfluffy Not big enough for a bottle unfortunately.

Thanks everyone.

Our table presents are usually secret Santa.

I finished my long Christmas sampler last night. My new one is very fiddly. Lots of little sections which are time-consuming!

I may not get another one done before Christmas at this rate!

Wow @NoWordForFluffy that's beautiful. Do you use a kit or design it yourself?

They're both kits. The long sampler is a Little Doves one and the fiddly one is from Riverdrift Tree on eBay.

They're beautiful, @NoWordForFluffy! Inspiring me to try some proper crafts. Haven't done cross stitch since I was at primary school but if I could manage it then . .

I've essentially just got better with practice, @Bloodybridget. I did some at school. Then did birth samplers for my nephew and niece in '97 and '99. Then nothing til 2013 and 2014 for my kids. I've picked up pace and some ability since.

They are amazing @nowordforfluffy.
I don't have the patience.

3 Christmas cakes made. Salt dough ornaments done. Kids off school I'll now though so.jouse looks like a bomb has hit and there is no time to ponce. Next week I want to get nice pies done.

I'm home alone on Friday so I'm making my sausage meat stuffing and maybe some sausage rolls. I've been clearing space in the freezer and this should use up a pack and a half of sausages, 2 bags of breadcrumbs, a bag of diced onions and a block of pastry and hopefully not take up as much space when I freeze them after I cook them. I usually use 2 1lb loaf tins and then just reheat and slice on the day.

Anyone got a good fudge recipe. DH is eating the stuff I made with a spoon

I'm a little bit in awe of all the festive poncing going on in here & just how organised some of you are!

I think I'd like to join in...but I'm not sure what I'd like to do, I haven't even thought about Christmas cakes yet 🙈 . Maybe a Christmas magazine will be inspirational & I'll come back full of ideas, which ones do you all enjoy? :)

@nowordforfluffy
I love your long sampler and have just spent several minutes fantasising about doing them, (I'd want a pair of course) despite having no knowledge of cross stitch and a poor track record of completing craft projects

I LOVE the poncetastic thread, but only as a spectator

Thank you, @RoseyPeas!

@lucysmam, I like Good Food and Good Housekeeping. I don't get crafty ones as I've enough projects already! 😂😂

@lucysmam what do you want to make? Don't do anything that you either wouldn't normally eat or you don't currently have the skills for.

If you eat Christmas cake then the Delia recipe is foolproof and delicious. Making it in the next week or so will still give it time to mature but there are plenty of recipes for cakes that can be made right up to Christmas Eve.

I'm not making Christmas pudding this year but I'm going to make a Yule log once I've got enough room in the freezer to store it.

I'll make some mince pies but only DH eats them. I made mincemeat for the first time this year so we'll see how they turn out

If I remember correctly you sew. So you could do some decorations or a table runner.