Christmas-Limbo

Stuck in that strange limbo between Christmas and New Year I thought it was the perfect time for a little run down of what I got up to for my festive celebrations.

It all kicked off with the First Annual Tennant-Norwood Christmas Party, which was a huge success. We managed to get the whole house decorated, including a Christmas tree which was far too big for a our living room (soooo cool). It was fantastic to see everyone, particularly old and far-flung friends who I don't get to see as often as I would like. People making that extra effort is one of the best things about Christmas.

Oversized tree squished into the corner

Speaking of extra effort, this years Christmas Jumper Competition winners were so good that next year we are actually going to have to come up with a different theme because I don't think anyone could beat them. My particular favourite was Ashley's stocking complete with sweets!

Joni's effort - sadly he couldn't keep it on due to the need to be plugged in!

Some very worthy winners

A few weeks after the Christmas party came my works Christmas do which was .... shall we say a laugh? This being the second 'works Christmas do' I'v been to in my time, and me being a highly ambitious person (and a terrible drunk) I decided I wouldn't drink too much surrounded by people who are much more important than me. Sadly I was then presented with a tale full of free wine. Ooops. I'm glad to report I was extremely well behaved at the party (I think) which is more than can be said for the next day at work. It was the last Friday before shut-down and sufficed to say I think there will be some very... odd looking work waiting for my on the 2nd of January. I would like to say I wasn't the worst - one guy went home at half 9. However I was probably not far behind him!

And so we made it to the Christmas shut-down without any major incedent, and I even managed to do all the Christmas food shopping on Friday night with Joni and a majoy hang-over. I slept for 11 hours that night but it was worth pushing on through to not have to go to Tescos the weekend before Christmas. Instead I spent the weekend visiting Joni's family for my first proper Christmas dinner.



As you may all have heard (through my endless bringing it up) this year was the first time I got to have Christmas day in my own home with Joni (and Tay). Because of this I had declared I was not stepping over the threshold of my house that day, and instead everyone would have to come to me. I was very excited about it and it was everything I had hoped for. I was quite surprised to wake up to a full stocking and loads of gifts from Joni. So we had lots of opening presents with croissants for breakfast before we had to get cracking with the cooking for Christmas dinner!

Tay guards my stocking!

We had been getting ready for this for months - including a dry-run the weekend before to practise the veg recipes and making a gravy in advance with 3L of chicken stock and a bottle of wine. Still., I'v never roasted a whole turkey before and we were pretty nervous that the whole thing could go horribly wrong. Luckily (and thanks to my epic and detailed action plan) all went to plan and dinner was delicious.

Turkey goes in the oven

So, all 8 people showed up and we squashed into the conservatory for dinner. Some time later the rest of the hoard showed up to pick over the left overs and so at one point we found 11 people squashed into our conservatory. And it was fantastic. I loved every moment of it, even the cooking. It was so fantastic to have Christmas in my own house. Of course the moment they all left I totally passed out, but it was worth it.

Roll on New Years Eve.....

Everyone squashed into one room!