Fake Christmas 2016

I recently celebrated 'Fake Christmas' with my university friends - you can read more about this joyous annual tradition in last year's blog post.

We travelled to Kirsty and Vernon's new house in Minehead for the 2016 edition. There's nothing quite like packing up the car with Christmas presents and Christmas food in the middle of January!

We all arrived from our different corners of the UK on the Saturday morning, and I was welcomed with an Options hot chocolate and marshmallows as I don't drink tea or coffee. An excellent start!

January's obligatory diet quite rightly gets ignored for the weekend of Fake Christmas, so I was delighted when Liz turned up with some rather amazing (and massive) white and milk chocolate chip cookies. Although we all had loads of catching up to do, the room immediately fell silent as we tucked in to these beauties. 

It was so lovely to have one more Christmas in the middle of January... let's face it, January is never a fun month between the weather, post-festive slump and aforementioned diets. There were even Christmas serviettes ready for the occasion!

Kirsty had been preparing the spectacular Christmas dinner and all the trimmings for quite some time and, as always, it was well worth the wait. The cauliflower cheese was a particular highlight for me, as well as the roast potatoes. I think you'll all agree that nothing beats a hefty roast dinner (if you don't agree, we can't be friends). I've pictured the meal with and without gravy... feast your eyes on this!

After a lot of mutual appreciation and a universal need for a post-food nap around the table, we decided to open our presents. We now operate a Secret Santa arrangement rather than buying a present for everyone, and I had two lovely presents from Fee... a travel mug chock-full of Friends quotes and a Soap & Glory Hand Food gift set. The Sugar Crush bottle smells divine! 

After opening our presents, the motion to play Cards Against Humanity was almost unanimously approved. I didn't want to play at first and thought it would be best if I just watched , but it was actually hilarious even for an inoffensive creature like myself. Playing it with eleven people was definitely very interesting!

Although we were all still really full even after playing Cards Against Humanity for hours, there's always room for cake. Liz had made her traditional Fake Christmas cake and it was REALLY good. Between the cookies and the cake, Liz should definitely be crowned the Fake Christmas queen of desserts.

It won't surprise you to hear that I'm already looking forward to Fake Christmas 2017!