The 2023 Poncetastic Christmas Thread

[VivaJen]

Welcome to the 2023 Poncetastic thread. With a nod to Fellatio (wherever she may be) 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 really want to be part of this thread despite lack of crafting competence. I have ordered our Christmas meat from the farm shop already, does that qualify me?

At lunch time I'm going to the woods to begin foraging some twigs for a large door arch thing im planning to make. Starting early because I need ALOT.

Last Christmas we were in a rented house as ours had unfortunately burned down and we were in the process of rebuilding. Now we are back so I'm going for the most ponce tastic Christmas ever!

I'm eyeing up those sort of origami paper star decorations at the minute. They are quite spendy and I need about 6. But they would look fabulous in my hallway.

I've ordered some new outdoor lights this morning. We lost all our Christmas stuff in the fire (the only things that I really mourn for out of any of our belongings) so I'm starting again from scratch.

Love those coasters!!

Oh wow! Very exciting indeed - I love Christmas with all the Ponce!
I shall be following this thread with great delight and looking forward to picking up some ideas for this Christmas!
I'm not sure if any of what we do could be considered as ponce, however, my family build up to Christmas by making Nigel Slater's Christmas pudding (from his Christmas book which I shall be dusting off very soon!), ordering a Norfolk Bronze turkey from M&S at the end of October, buying a real tree and decorating it (mainly) with my mum's 1960s ornaments and hanging paper snowflakes from the ceiling, fairy lights need to be EVERYWHERE, and in Christmas eve we make and decorate a gingerbread house which is on display until new years where it gets smashed up and eaten!! I just love the build up to Christmas ❤️

I bought one of the paper things last year at a Christmas market, but I want to get another so I can hand them in the two upstairs windows at front of the house so that they match. And also get some good lights on a timer to go inside them.

Ooh... I've been waiting for this thread and was busy yesterday- I'm so pleased you are all here. DH finished last year's Christmas cake about 2 weeks ago and now it's time to make more! I toom a rare trip out to the shops the other day and there was so much stuff out. My children are already wanting to do Christmas things and I'm having to hold them back a bit, but I am so excited to begin the bigger projects.

Stage 1- emptying the freezer! Usually we fill it with home made sausage rolls, mince pies, palmiers, cabbage. I'm wondering what else I can do in advance.

Has anyone tried freezing home made Yorkshire puddings? Do they heat ok on the day?

@DanceWithYourBalloon @Nonplusultra I bought LED lights and coloured them in with sharpies. They were/are beautiful, it gave that lovely warm acid glow rather that the very harsh multi colour like the modern lights do. The key is to use an orange and a pink (I did red, orange, pink, blue, green)

Those lights look Perfect!! We have two trees, a sort of classy (but bit boring?) one and the other one which the kids are in charge of (until they go to bed and I move everything around to make it look better )

Oooh! They look marvellous!

@thenewaveragebear1983 they remind me so much of the lights when I was a child. They are beautiful- modern lights are all so harsh

I've decided on my Christmas cake, it's going to be the Good Housekeeping chocolate stout cake, last year I did their cherry cake.

I've inherited a huge amount of buttons so I'm going to try to make a button tree, I'm not crafty but I can sew on buttons.

Aspiring ponce place marking. I've order some new dining chairs if it counts, so we can eat securely seated.

Loving all the photos!

Homemade yorkshire puddings freeze perfectly well, just reheat in the oven. I do that a lot as if I'm making yorkshires I'll make two trays worth and freeze the ones that don't get eaten.

Homemade stuffing balls freeze really well too, just lay them out on a tray and freeze first before bagging them up so they don't stick together.

I have now started soaking the fruit for the Christmas cake. Sultanas, raisins, mixed peel, glacé cherries and glacé ginger are now soaking in a mixture of amaretto, brandy and Cointreau. I may have soaked a bit more than I need to have extra to put in porridge in December........

@Soscrewed @DanceWithYourBalloon

thanks. I was very pleased with them, it did take several hours if I recall, but worth it

@piscofrisco I used to do a ‘classy’ tree with all white and silver but I started to get very tired of it and it looked cold. Last year I did all the 80’s jewel colours, and I loved it, that’s what I’ll be doing again this year.

An aspiring ponce also placemarking, always love reading these threads!

Placemarking to ponce later :-)

@thenewaveragebear1983 those lights are absolutely lovely, and I think I will have a go and pick up some Sharpies this week.

Yes to Yorkshire puddings in the freezer, also pigs n blankets freeze well. Anything with pastry!

I’ve always wanted to make that chilli jam- any advice?

I've been checking for this thread for weeks, even though I knew it wasn't time! We're huge Christmas fans in the FoolHouse and MiniFool had been shrieking in delight at the photos so far, especially the cakes & trees (I'm raising this kid right 😇). I'm definitely more of an aspirational poncer, but now I feel I owe it to MiniFool to at least try, after raising expectations with all your offerings!

Nigella Lawson has a great recipe for chilli jam. I make it at least twice a year, although my advice is to boil it for a little bit longer than the recipe says and pour it into jars straight away as otherwise the lids don't pop and seal if it's too cool. My last batch hasn't disappeared as quickly as previous ones as I experimented with using a lazy chilli jar instead of fresh chillis and it's not as good. The colour is fantastic though. I do know from previous threads that @NoWordForFluffy makes it with different coloured chillis and it looks like traffic lights.

In poncetastic fashion I have set my fruit soaking in brandy today. I'll be making 3 small cakes plus 2 large and 4 individual Christmas puddings.

I do a different recipe, as I wasn't keen on Nigella's. I do this one.

It looks really cool with different colour chillies. 🌶️

Ah I thought I used Nigella but it was BBC Good Food.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/sweet-chilli-jam
as I said before I added a jar of apricot jam as my chilliest were a bit fierce!

Thanks for the recipe link Fluffy. I use jam sugar usually so that will probably mean I don't need the apples but the advice about hot jars/jam and the cold plate is perfect.