Christmas party on Sunday

I am a bit late with this post as yesterday we had a problem and our e-mail went down for the day and I couldn’t log into my blog either. My eldest son who is my I.T. guy managed to get it fixed last night but my last couple of blog posts have disappeared.

Before I start my party post I will just say for anyone who missed the last couple of posts that they were about the improvement in Salmon after another course of tylan. Her wheeze has gradually improved and is now barely noticeable at all and she seems really well so I am now much more hopeful that she will be okay.

Sunday was earlier than usual for our Christmas party but it was the date that the most people could make and we agreed to have it in the afternoon starting between twelve and half twelve.

We have a Christmas get together every year for our group of up to twenty friends some of which we don’t have the chance to see often as they live a distance away. Usually we have a meal in a pub but often we find it expensive for not very good food and it is difficult to get round and talk to everyone and we always seem to be the last ones waiting in the car park for a taxi.

A couple of times in the past we have done the catering, as it is what we do, and another couple have hosted the party at their house as they have more space than us. However this year we offered to cater it and host it at our house. Our house has plenty of rooms but the rooms are small so we knew it would be cosy but we felt it was possible.

Another couple organised the drinks and we added up the food costs and the drink costs and divided the costs equally between each of the couples. It worked out at less than half the cost of going out and we had the advantage of not needing a taxi.

We ended up with eighteen of us and we wanted to seat everyone for a cold fork buffet. We knew we could squeeze eight around our dining table as we have done so for family Christmas dinners. We borrowed a fold up table which was similar in size from my eldest son to go in the sitting room which also seated eight. This left another two so we put our small patio table and two garden chairs in a corner of the dining room.

We had enough seats with the addition of two stools we have and spare chairs we have in the loft. We knew it would be cosy but decided that it would also be fun.

We have the advantage of having our work kitchen a few steps from our back door so we set up the food and drinks out there to save space indoors. We also set up a tea and coffee making corner using one of the small water boilers that we use for our afternoon teas. We also have the advantage of having plenty of crockery and cutlery and glass ware because of our catering business and we used our vintage crockery for main and side plates.

Our dining table for eight

A garden table for two in a corner of the dining room

An extra table for two fits in a corner

Another table for eight in the sitting room

There are no glasses on the table as we put them outside with the food and drinks so that everyone could take a glass of whatever they wanted on arrival and bring it to the table when we were ready to eat.

We chatted for about an hour with our drinks before everyone helped themselves to food. We moved around between courses so that we could chat to everyone. After we had eaten we removed the table from the sitting room and the patio table so that there was more room to sit more casually and carry on chatting.

It was a great success and everyone had a great time us included. Some of our guests bought us gifts of wine, chocolate or plants/flowers for hosting and preparing the food so I have photographed the plants/flowers as they add a touch of Christmas to the house.

A lovely bouquet of flowers

A Christmas hyacinth

A poinsettia

We have since had e-mails from everyone thanking us and saying how much everyone enjoyed it. We did have a moment before guests arrived when we suddenly realised that the responsibility was on us whether it went well rather than us just rocking up to a pub and feeling free to complain a bit when the food was pretty rubbish.

We needn’t have worried and everyone said the food was top notch and that it was really good of us to host it and prepare the food and wash up afterwards. We think we may be doing this again in future years.

On our part we are grateful that our guests are willing to travel some distance and to organise taxis home whereas we are able to stay at home so it worked out well for all of us. We gave our guests some food to take home and we had left overs for dinner the next day saving us having to cook so everyone was happy. It was a great success and a really fun day.