Poncetastic Christmas 2025

[welikebeingcosy]

Added by MNHQ upon request:
OK, first of all, I know it's still September but 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.The days are getting shorter, the leaves are starting to brown, that can only mean one thing- it's time to ignore the waves of Halloween decor all over your local The Range and head to the woods to start picking your own holly for that perfect Kirsty inspired wreath.

We want homemade stuffing recipes perfected by November, the handmade crackers draped in the most delicate of embroidered ribbon, mantle pieces draped in the most Scandinavian of wooden carvings, specialised stamps for the personalised wrapping paper ordered by next week and the word craft to be your official middle name by new year.

Happy ponceing and may Nigel and Nigella's fairy lights guide you on your way to getting the last box of rosemary and sea salt crackers in your own personal Bethlehem.

I found you! I am very late to the ponce party it seems but thankfully I have found you now. It’s tricky this year as I am determined to not spend loads of money or to overstretch myself in terms of crafting commitments. However, my poncing plans include:
Christmas cake (first year doing a gluten free recipe)
re-do some bauble garlands - bought some thicker wire yesterday in Hobbycraft but annoyingly I have list it between shop and home, need to rebuy. I am fairly certain in Jan last year I stripped the baubles off my old garlands. This year I want to glue the bauble tops to the balls, before fixing to the wire and I also want to be more organised in terms of size/ placement)
my only new make this year is a hanging table centre, I want those floating candle lights to hang from a ceiling garland over my dining table. It feels ambitious!

Let me know how you get on - mine are going a bit wrinkly at the top of the jug! Hoping some of the lower down ones are working.

Started making some fabric bows last night to string together to make a garland. My Facebook reels are full of rustic decoration ideas so the algorithms are working in my favour for a change! Will take a picture once they’re sewn together.

Thoughts please…these are the bows I’ve made from some fabric I found in the loft. Planning to sew them together to make a garland. Do I stick to the one fabric or do I do a repeating pattern with some plain fabric - got red and navy in a similar weight (included in the picture). I can’t decide!

Depending on the colour scheme of your home in general and that of your Christmas colour scheme (if you have one) I'd say they would look beautiful as they are, or also interspersed with green, red, or beige bows.

I actually thought that the Instagram crochet lady looked like she was working with satsuma peel, not orange peel (even though she said it was orange peel) so I've asked my folks to save their satsuma peel. Still looks great, though 👌

I've got all sorts sitting in glycerine tonight. Time will tell how it all pans out.

(Sneaks in and waves shyly!) Hello!

Ive had a nosey on this thread and you are all so very talented! I have zero patience or crafting skills so am hoping you can help me please!

Young son is very much into Pokemon (asd so this is his current passion!) and id like to make him some pokemon baubles for his tree. Ive seen fill your own baubles on Amazon, plastic ones, that I thought i could print out a pokemon character, put inside and add some glitter. How would I get the paper character disc to stand up though and not fall over? Also, will the glitter sneak through?

Hes got advent stocking which i was going to add one to each sock for him to open each morning as he doesn't like chocolate or sweets so thought this would be a nice alternative.

Thanks all in advance for your help!

hobby craft sell sets of six ceramic baubles if you are any good at copying / painting?

otherwise I’d use blutak or similar to get it to hang up. You could paint the inside with a thin layer or glitter glue to make it sparkly?

Im not good at painting or drawing which is why I thought i could print the pictures.

Love the glitter glue idea, I hadn't thought of that thank you!

We did something years ago with DD where we printed out photos, then laminates them / covered them in cleat sticky backed plastic, but cut out in a big round globe shape then dotted white paint on it so it looked like a snow globe. Hope that makes sense. If not. I'll try and draw a picture 😊

Oh this sounds good too as I do have access to a laminator in work!

You could decoupage the pictures on to the outside of ceramic baubles with PVA. It would work best with tissue paper or paper napkins but wrapping paper should work too.

Thank you for this! Ive seen pokemon wrapping paper on my travels so this could work! Thank you!

You could use Mod Podge to glue pictures of his fave Pokémon onto wood slices or flat ceramic baubles. It would work perfectly and give a nice seal. Tie on some baking twine or jute string to hang them with. You could even tie them to a cheap set of twinkly battery lights to make a garland.

Heres my 1st attempt at a satsuma wreath. Quite pleased with it and intending on making half a dozen or so to hang around the house. I've torn up some lime peel to intersperse with the satsuma on my next attempt.

I have many things steeping in glycerine like pink snow berries, eucalyptus, rose buds, leaves etc. If the cat sits still long enough he better watch out. I keep looking for other things then having to go and buy more glycerine

I should actually be making candles as I have orders fulfill....

Oh and the packs of wires for the wreaths are reduced to £1 a pack in Hobbycraft. The shorter ones are the perfect size, and I also got some longer ones which I'm going to attempt to make heart shaped mini wreaths with

I was thinking a Scandi vision was some kind of poncetastic Nordic delight I was unaware of!

Love the HH account. Orange peel wreaths are looking lovely.

Haven’t done any poncing this weekend as I am waiting to be paid on Tues. Then the poncing will start full force with no holds barred.

Oh that looks lovely @RainbowZebraWarrior how many satsumas did you use? I've been making them with with just one each time, never occurred to me I could use more than one 🤦🏼‍♀️

There's 3 satsumas in that one and it fills a 10 inch length of wire perfectly. (Well, allowing for the twisting of the ends together and the bit of greenery) The finished wreath is about the size of my palm

@TheWoollybacksWifecould you give me the pattern for your Forrero covers? I have been pondering and I now want to make poncy favours.

@Peachypips78of course. Bear with me as I'll need to type it out in a PM as it's currently a handwritten scrawl in my notebook.

@thenewaveragebear1983 that sounds amazing hanging wreath with floating candles

I've already got the floating candles and I could hang a wreath but it would have to be so light

@CandlesClementinesi have been looking at floristry wreath hoops and was thinking some sort of (faux) foliage, small baubles and the floating candles 🤔 I’m not particularly technical so it will probably be a big mess but I figured I could still hang the candle lights.

it’s not exactly poncing but I got some beautiful vintage coloured (pat tested!) Christmas lights, you know the ones with little push in bulbs and plastic leave shades, in the charity shop, for £2!!!

Finally finished an advent calender for my great nephew- worried I was going to miss 1 December!!

I love that advent calendar @Tombobombo I haven't done much, but am booked into a wreath making workshop for the beginning of December, and trying to finish off a jacket I am making before getting on with my fabric Christmas crackers

Advent thingy is lovely @Tombobombo. What do you put in your crackers @Frumpyunicorn? I made some last year but found ideas for filling them difficult!

@Peachypips78 did my PM come through?