Partying Like Santa Claus

We have been really blessed to be invited to a few Christmas parties this holiday season. Although we could not attend them all, we were able to go to a couple.  This past Saturday, we headed over to some friends house where 12 of us celebrated Christmas by having a wonderful dinner and sharing a few presents.  The dinner was fantastic, and pretty much the same foods as we would have in the states.  Although the dessert was my talking piece, Christmas pudding, or as someone told me, figgy pudding.  I bet you can't get the Christmas song out of your head now.  "Now bring us some figgy pudding..."  It was fantastic! Also, they served some other great desserts, but the cheese tray for dessert was right up my alley.  Cheese plates are on dessert menus over here, and I absolutely love that idea as I like to end with something savory rather than sweet.  One other tradition that I know a few people in the States do as well is "Christmas Crackers" or what I would call "poppers".  Before we ate dinner, we grabbed our cracker, crossed our arms, and pulled it with the person next to us. Inside was a crown (as you see in the picture below) and a small gift (a sticker).  It was a great tradition that I would like to start at my Christmas dinners in the future.  So cute!

 The group

Enough about food.

After dinner, we swapped presents which is always a great time!  We all had a name, but instead of just handing that person our present they had to guess based on the present we gave them.  The other "catch" is that all my presents I gave to my Secret Santa had to start with the first letter of my name.  I first put a card in the holiday bag saying "May your Christmas be warm, fulfilling, and drunken.  This was my way to give him some clues on what was left in the bag.  So...I got him a scarf (an American flag one to make it that much better...muahahaha), Starbucks gift card, and a small bottle of Smirnoff (with the booze, candies, and little pint glass).  So needless to say after he opened the scarf...he knew it was me since Jeff opted out of the gift exchange (Scrooge).  The gift I received was from a friend, named Tom, so he knows me well as he got me a great loose leaf tea pot and some tea to enjoy.

My teapot and tea.

We each taught a game to the group as we sat around and enjoyed each others company.  Each couple brought a cocktail to serve the group.  Jeff and I made it simple and fun by bringing some Fireball, which you cannot find over here.  No other ingredients needed! Overall, it was a great night. It was a little sad thinking we would not be able to do this every year with our friends over here as next year we'll be back home in Indiana. Thanks Ben, for sharing your pictures with us all! 

 Large Jenga!

Mustache game, kind of like the post-it note game. You have to guess the person's name you have on your mustache.  Actually harder than you think, especially if you have no idea who the person is, like me! 

Just for the record, Jeff did participate in his work's Secret Santa, although I am pretty sure he did not have a choice.  We decided another round of American gifts, as we see this very fitting. Hey, I mean next year these gifts will have lost their novelty as I'm guessing our American friends would not find as much humor in this.  Let's be honest, Jeff gave me the go-ahead to pick out something American. I tried to buy The Patriot, but the guy at the movie store said it was "discontinued"...whatever that means.  So I bought three Blue Moon beers, as they are from America.  I also picked up a Hershey's bar, Butterfinger, and Baby Ruth candy bars to tie to each of the bottles.  Then I picked up a mustache pint glass to go along with it. I wanted to put a corny title like "You mustache more American beer and candies. Merry Christmas!" But Jeff wasn't as keen on this idea. Do you get it..."You MUST HAVE more American beer and candies. Merry Christmas!" Yes? No?


A few days later we went to Jeff's work Christmas party at a pub in Derby. It was nice because many of our same friends were there, so I knew people, which was nice. It was nice hanging out with the wives, and catching up, just us girls.  As the boys were off doing their own thing.  We ate, they gave out awards, and we had a few pints.  The awards were interesting from a non engineer's point of view.  A lot of acronyms were thrown around, so I had no idea what they were talking about.  As if it was a different language!  It was still fun, as everyone was laughing.  Jeff won the "Demonstrating a Lack of British Stamina and Shameless Promotion of American Exports (aka Taylor Swift's music).  Great night overall, and was glad we were able to go [Sorry, failed at taking any pictures].



Onto the next adventure...