Poncetastic Christmas 2024

[StiffyByngsDogBartholomew]

@vivajen hasn't posted on MN for a year so I've taken the bull by the horns. I can't wait any longer !
Wherever you are, Fellatio, here's to you. I hope you're brining a turkey and had crafting authentic organic woven tinsel somewhere.
"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 made a little hanging wreath. Might need a bit more fettling tomorrow. Tree is up. Mostly decorated.

Got the garland on fireplace finally. Did a mixture of whole oranges and thinly sliced ones.

Excuse the fireplace draft curtain - it looks nicer without it but it does blow a gale.

That's really lovely !

Aww now I have fireplace envy too 😅. I do love my house but it really does have its shortcomings 😂.

Hello, longtime poster with a new account so I can share pictures of the stuff I've made (they're on my Instagram too, so not anonymous). If you do recognise me from other posts 👋 👀 🤫
Really happy with how my Christmas mugs came out, the candy cane one was a real faff so definitely a one off 😅.

@AlicePottery they are absolutely fabulous! 😍😍

Beautiful mugs!

Thank you 😊

Well we are all very quiet!
Yesterday was full on. I set up a willow lantern making workshop then went to local steam train station to dance on platform with folk group. Back to lantern workshop which finished at 4.30 then home for a bath to ease my back.
Later DH and I went to an evening of over the top Victorian Christmas which was truly wonderful.
Today we have spent fake stain-glassing some truly awful 60s half glass doors. This evening to dancing and ceili calling. Home to gin!

Much better than nasty leaf moulded 60’s glass. Just window film but I am pleased.

That door looks lovely.

Lots of Christmassy activities too.

Our lantern parade was postponed because of sorm weather warnings. It's rescheduled for this Friday 🤞🤞🤞

I'm officially in bed today having caught vomiting bug from lovely little grandchild. 🤒 Hoping I'm on the mend now.

@HannahDefoesTrenchcoat
i do hope you are on the mend. Horrible germy little creatures!

Behold my nougat. It's flavoured with coconut, cranberry, freeze dried raspberry and pistachio. Real Christmas flavours. I was rather concerned it wasn't going to work because my sugar thermometer packed up but it's cracking. I'm sending some to my aunty in her Christmas box which i will show you later when I've packed it

Following with amazement

❤️❤️❤️ still loving the thread, even though I've not done a single thing for Christmas except put out a small number of decorations. It's all I'm going to do this year.

I had planned to buy nougat (the other kind), marzipan and dark chocolate with which to make confectionary while we're visiting with the (grown-up) children, but I'm not sure I've got the resources to do that, tbh. I'll be happy if I even have a suitably tidy and refreshed house by about the 20th so we can relax and get into the spirit.

So it's really, really nice to see so many lovely things that others are getting up to!

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew your nougat looks fantastic.😋

@Trumpton your windows turned out fab and it looks so pretty with the wreath.🎄

Wow @StiffyByngsDogBartholomew the nougat looks amazing!

Ooh that nougat @StiffyByngsDogBartholomew 😍

It's been ages since I posted on here! I've finally got my house decorated, in the sitting room I've got my little wooden houses on the window ledge, (the cat hasn't broken them yet 🙀), My car boot candle sticks on the top of the bureau. The massive gold stars are now covered in pearls and hanging on the wall. My dresser has DDs collection of snowglobes, I've put garlands, ribbon and lights on absolutely everything. The Christmas tree is in the bay window, I bought more lights and had been collecting more baubles from car boots. I'm really happy with how it's looking. Yesterday I filled some small metal sleighs with oasis and stuck in bits of greenery we collected for another window ledge. I've made a pretty centrepiece for the coffee table from a star shaped glass dish, and filled it with orange slices, pinecone, and cinnamon sticks. I've got huge paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling in the hall and another tree on the landing.

I'm half way through making the wonder crackers. I finished a prototype last week and learnt a lot about what not to do! I hope to finish the sewing on those today. I've not made a wreath for my front door, not sure if I will now.

I saw another diy project I want to try... Probably for next year now. It's making a Christmas tree from cut glass bowls. I was at the charity shop last week where I may have made a start on collecting supplies

I'm leaving all cooking and baking up to my DH with the exception of rum truffles, lemon possets, gingers snaps and the raspberry and amaretti triffle.

@Christingly im making wondercrackers over the next couple of days except im making up my own pattern from seeing a video on YouTube and cobbling their instructions together with the pages I can see from the wc listing. Can you share any tips ?

That reminds me, I need to get sweets to do the candy sleighs for all our guests on Boxing Day. No idea yet how I'm going to decorate the two tables 🤔

This is my study decoration btw, got the white tree last year in Lidl. The feather "tinsel" was left behind at a wedding when I worked in hospitality (we have a lot of interior decoration bits that were left behind at weddings 😝) and I've had for years waiting for the right place to use them. The whole room is decorated in pink and white as you can see.
everything in here is either ancient, reduced to clear, secondhand from Facebook or "out of a skip" (the kitchen units were free to collector which we painted with gloss paint). The only thing I got new was the worktop

@Christingly this is the fabric for my crackers, don't know if you can see but the outer fabric is very dark green, I'm going to make some of the felt decorations to match my wreaths to go on top, or at least that's what my plan is

Most of my problems were about making sure I had the pattern centralised on the outside of the cracker. My maths and logical brain has clearly left me!

Other than that, when you sew up the tube of the cracker, make sure you're as close to the top/bottom edges of the buckram as possible, but don't sew on the buckram! I'm using the very thick stuff that stands up to machine washing, and when I folded it in half, it didn't fold flat so wasn't even on the underside, so I had about a 5mm gap on one side. Using a walking foot helped a lot for that bit.

Loving the nougat !

Everyone’s house looks so gorgeous and I have yet to get going ! However I finished night shift this morning and after an evening languishing in bed trying to reset the body clock, it’s all systems go tomorrow ! Oven cleaner in first thing, and whilst he’s exclaiming in horror at the state of it, I can sew my newly redyed cushion covers back on the kitchen sofa and do a Big Clean. Then out with the dog to forage some lengths of holly for the mantels ( our neighbour doesn’t mind) and then try and find some mistletoe. Haven’t seen any this year so far at all .

In awe of your oven cleaner plan and wishing I’d thought of that. Definitely going on the list for early Dec next year.

General update:
Well, I’ve not made much progress with my cross stitch cards. Meant to have them finished by the 8th to post on our jaunt to England but that didn’t happen so sent out emergency normal cards instead. We have an end of term lunch with some good friends tomorrow so may give them the ones I’ve done.

The ham is defrosting (we can only get frozen here) and I’m contemplating one of Nigella’s recipes but it won’t be the Coca Cola one this year.

Mince pies were baked at the beginning of the week and are being merrily munched each morning in bed with a coffee. I’ve frozen only 12 for next week and am a bit worried we’ll be sad when they finish and without an oven to bake more. My mincemeat was expired but absolutely fine but I’m contemplating making my own next year. I swapped Delia’s pastry for the Bero book one. Definitely less temperamental but also less short, so not sure if I’d repeat. It was nice being able to roll out a second round without it crumbling away into bits.

And I’ve delegated the Christmas Day ponceing to a VERY nice hotel about an hour’s drive from where we’ll be staying as our airbnb won’t have an oven. They do an excellent job when it’s not Christmas so I have high hopes indeed!