New Year's Eve 2013

It's the last day of the year.  I spent the day baking.  Gingerbread Men and a Crouching Tiger Hidden Zebra cake (a.k.a. Stripy Cake).  Dessert.  My contribution to tonights party and buffet.

There was so much food.  I'm sure we could have fed the whole of Birmingham with the amount that was there.  We only managed to scratch the surface.

There was eating, dancing, drinking, laughter.  More drinking, eating, laughter and dancing.  The way the year should end.  The way we should start the New Year.  The way we should want it to continue.

A Spanish tradition is to eat a grape and make a wish on each of the 12 dongs that lead up to midnight.  The rush of having to eat a grape on each of the dongs meant I forgot to make a wish after each grape.

I ended up making one big wish.  Let's see if this year it comes true.

Happy New Year!

x

Art

Gingerbread People and a Gingerbread House.  A roof dripping in white frosting, jewelled with multicoloured Jellies and milk chocolate Jazzies.

A Gingerbread Christmas Tree and a Snowman too.

It's sad to demolish it all, particularly without Princess who is tucked away in bed, but it is so tasty that it cannot be helped.

A much needed dessert considering the unintentional, super hot curry that Papa Carter and I co-created.

Even after 2 cans of coconut milk and a few spoonfuls of sugar, there was still a significant amount of heat.  Thankfully there was rice.

The demolished Gingerbread House was not noticed the next day by Princess.  She was easily distracted by Gingerbread Pancakes and doing some drawing.

The Little Prince was just too little to notice anything.  Even the christmas cap that sat awkwardly on top of his little head.

Boxing Day Sales

Boxing Day.  The day after Christmas, when the shops re-open and life slowly makes its way out of the Christmas haze.

Boxing Day was always the start of the sales in the big retail outlets, such as Curry's or Dixon's, giving discounts on all sorts of electrical goods.  I remember buying my first TV in one of these sales.

But when did this change to the first day of any sales, electronic or clothes?  Everything was open today.  I was surprised.  Everyone was out trying to get a good bargain.

Although considering that in most places the sales had begun before Christmas, there was nothing that I saw that was an amazing bargain.  The excitement of the Christmas sales seems to have lost its lustre for me this year.

Christmas Jumpers

This year I wanted a Christmas jumper.  I spent weeks searching the internet and the high street trying to find the perfect one.

Something not too gaudy, but yet something that was tacky enough to be classified as a Christmas jumper.  Something that would be suitable for the Christmas jumper competition that we had at work today.

It was pale green, with snow balls and a sparkling christmas pudding in the middle.  Something different versus all the Snowmen and Santa Clauses that were out there.

It seems that Christmas Puddings were the in thing this year.  There were loads of us with different variations of a Pudding.  And then there was also my jumper twin.  Happy Days.

'Happy Pismas!'

'Happy Pismas!'  These are the words that Princess uses to wish a Happy Christmas.  At two and a half she is becoming more aware of who Father Christmas is and of the presents that he will bring on his sleigh.

To help with the countdown to Christmas I came across a Kinder Egg Advent calendar that was sold in Germany.  I had to get one for Princess.  A toy for everyday was just an added bonus that I couldn't resist.

What I didn't realise was that the concept of only opening one door each day would be lost on someone so little.  According to Papa Carter, it has caused many a tantrum not being able to open all the doors in one go.

For some reason the thought of this just brings a smile to my face.  There is something very cute about this scenario.

Blooming Lilies

Lilies are a favourite flower of mine.

When Ramps came to visit over the weekend, she gave me a bouquet as a gift.  They were so pretty and vibrant that I couldn't resist getting the camera out and taking pictures of them.

Enjoy.

Past, Present and Future

This was the theme for our End of Year Party.  It was held at the Think Tank in Birmingham.  A part of Birmingham that I hadn't ventured out to yet.

Our drinks on reception were with robots of the future.  Robots programmed to say hello, wink and wolf whistle at the touch of a button.

Dinner was in a modernly furnished room.  Steel tables and chairs, with vases filled with Cadbury chocolates as centre pieces.

 

When dinner finished, this was when the madness began.  Each table had a cardboard box filled with flower garlands, glasses, whistles etc...  As you can imagine the decibels in the room suddenly increased by a few octaves as the box contents were used.

The evening entertainment was a DJ playing some classics from the past.  It started off with Wigfield and the Macarena, which had everyone doing the line dances.