Poncetastic Christmas 2021

[VivaJen]

Welcome to the 2021 Poncetastic thread. With a nod to Fellatio (wherever she is), at the stroke of midnight, let the poncing commence.

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.

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 jobs worth 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 canapés 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 Bessie’s' on the packet, this is not the thread for you".

I'm still catching up on the thread but someone asked for a pork free stuffing. We make a Scottish oatmeal stuffing made with oatmeal, onion and butter. Happy to share if any one wants to try it. Perfect for my vegetarian brother.

Oooh roots on my Paperwhites !

If anyone else is planning to make Christstollen and was struggling to source rum extract (which some recipes call for rather than just rum), I have ordered some from eBay for not too extortionate and free postage.

I’ve also just bought some pebbles in wilko so will start my paperwhites in a minute, very excited.

I have to get on and make the creole cake instead of just sniffing the soaking fruit

To make matters worse I have weighed out Nigella’s Christmas pudding fruit and now that is steeping in the sherry. I forgot I normally halve the recipe and now I don’t have a big enough pudding basin or a spare to do two.

I Might try using the stainless steel mixing bowl off my weighing scales if I can’t buy one tomorrow.

Playing around with printed pages for cards today. I think I need to make the text smaller but am happy enough.
Will be making Key Lime Pies later. They are a good clean taste although quite sweet.

They look good Trumpton.

My third house is drying nicely - its roof panels need putting together next but I've started the bandstand so they'll have to wait until I've finished the section I'm working on now. Hopefully tomorrow evening!

Pre-Christmas clean starts tomorrow in dd2's room...she doesn't know this but I rescued something from down the side of her bed the other day & it's super dusty down there so I'll be pulling everything out & then work my way round the house from there 🤣

@lucysmam. I love your little houses. I really don’t crochet, I am a knitter, but would like to make some( maybe not this year )
Can you link me to pattern? Every year I make a tree decoration for my 3 and although they are all grown ups now I continue to do so.

@Trumpton it's this one here.

They're working up much easier than I expected & I'm only using cheap thread from Ebay

I think that might take you straight to my account 🙈

@lucysmam

I think that might take you straight to my account 🙈

It doesn't don't worry

Oh good, thanks @Kikkomam!

Boom! Ordered! I will print it off and put it in my Christmas future file.
Thank you.

👋 to all the poncers!

🎄🎄🎄

Lots of food related poncing going on: made our Christmas pudding yesterday, plus buffet size sausage rolls - half of which are now gone so we’ll make another batch to freeze. Made apple chutney and mincemeat. Cranberry gin liqueur and apricot brandy liqueur (already mentioned those, I think), plus plans for prunes steeped in muscat/moscatel. Going to switch now to making some of traditional Scandinavian things such as cinnamon cookies and St.Lucia buns.

Haven’t done any crafting, but I’ve got plans for this coming week!

@lucysmam I love your little houses.

@Trumpton am I supposed to be topping up the water for the bulbs?

@HollyandIvyandAllThingsYule
They shouldn’t need topping up yet.

But I will check mine !

I’ve already done it because it looked really low, then got scared that maybe I wasn’t supposed to...

@HollyandIvyandAllThingsYule
They are prettying forgiving !

I turned my first two trays of orange slices brown! Even on the oven's lowest setting. I finally worked out that the best way is on the lowest setting AND with the door slightly open - the way my gran just to do meringues. My current batch is looking much oranger, and I think is as good as I'm going to get without buying a dehydrator.

My christmas cake is made, and wrapped up cosily with a drizzle of spiced apple brandy to keep it happy. I'll add some homemade kirsch next weekend.

@Trumpton did you knit/crochet your gonks/gnomes? I'm thinking of doing something like that as Fererro Rocher covers for my friend (I do her different ones every year) and just wondered if you freestyled or if you had a pattern.

@TheWoollybacksWife
Bit of both really. The original pattern was a Ravelry one but I tweaked it.
Let me find it …
THESE

So I added beards, I like the knitted beard best.

Excellent thank you @Trumpton They are just one stitch bigger than the Christmas pudding ones I've made previously so they should adapt perfectly. I'll post a photo when I'm done.

Gosh, I am in awe of all the stitching and knitting, Its not one of my skills, all of your pieces look wonderful, well done.
I got some wrapping started today, squeezed in a small batch of carmelised red onion chutney, so easy to do in the slow cooker and started wrapping some cardboard tubes to make a 12 days of christmas advent calendar, very fiddly but looking like it will be worth it. Got the christmas parcels posted to china yesterday but forgot to put in the christmas card 😳. Feeling poncetastic tho lol

@noodledoodler do you have a recipe for the chutney that I could pinch? I'd never have thought to do it in the slow cooker!

I need to think of something to do with my Rainbows next Tuesday. It's the only week I haven't planned for 🤔 any simple ideas for 5/6 year olds? I'll have a scroll of Pinterest in the morning!

@lucysmam

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/03/caramelised-red-onion-chutney-recipe
I made about half as much again,
It filled the slow cooker. I started around teatime and put in on high for about 4 hours. I switched it to low overnight them added the sugar and vinegars the next morning. I left it on low til about 7pm and then transferred it to the hob for about 15 mins to finish reducing it but you could take the lid off the slow cooker and leave it on high for a while just as easily. I did cut the onions quite thinly too so that helped the slow cooking.