An actual example of what my Mum knocks together each Christmas.
All species covered.
She is fully saintly when it comes to hosting.
I have 3 sisters and one brother. All but one has a partner. There are 7 grandkids involved. There is Mum and my beautiful StepDad. That is 19 people altogether. And this year we are all under the one roof at the Parentals. We are having the mother of all sleepovers.
Brace yourselves. We are a-coming!
They live just far away enough not to drive back home, and to be honest when we get together there is no way anyone should be having a set of car keys on them, if you catch my drift.
My sister Mrs Ryan actually lives around the corner from Mum but they bought a totally beautiful dump a while back and all thoughts of being in their new place by Christmas was abandoned long ago. So they have moved in with the oldies in the interim, bringing along with them 2 dogs, 2 cats and I cannot remember how many guinea pigs. Mum has two dogs as well. That is a LOT of dogshit for the kids to tramp through the house. Lucky they live on a few acres.
AND (shhh I have not told Mum yet) I only just rang up to book our menagerie into the boarding kennels and the lady laughed and laughed at me, so add another cat and two more guinea pigs to the list.
So with that many people under one roof, and the weather set to piss down rain for the day, I have devised a plan than will most certainly see a repeat of the year my sisters and I did some table top dancing to "Hey Big Spender" complete with full body shimmers and top hats.
You will need one, two,three a few bottles of Vodka O. I use Vodka O as it is the least likely to give me a headache the next day. You will also need to gather lime cordial, mint leaves, ice, soda and fresh limes.
Oh and a cocktail shaker, but if you do not have one (and I have been caught out in the past) you can use a clean tin and the end of a rolling pin to smash up your core ingredients. So into the shaker place ice, a decent slosh of vodka, lime cordial (we use the diet version as we are trying to be healthy) a roughly chopped lime or two and fresh torn mint leaves. Then pop the lid on and shake the shit out of it, making sure that the ice pulverises the limes and mint so that it really infuses the vodka.
Pour this concentrate over ice it a long glass. Top with super fizzy soda. I bought Mr Woog a Soda Stream a few years back (always a romantic gift - the gift of gas) so we always have it on hand.
Now the trick to maintaining this buzz all afternoon is to drink your Cocktail and keep topping it up with soda, to ensure continued hydration and to stop you from getting too messy and picking a fight with one of your siblings who may be behaving like a fuckwit.
And with that handy tip, I truly wish you and yours a happy and safe Christmas.
Thanks for the laughs this year, and by that I mean laughing AT me, not WITH me.
Love Mrs Woog
Is Your Christmas all Donna Hay-ish and Dom Perignon?
Or are you more of a Donna Kebab and Bundy Family.....
