Sunday was my first proper Christmas celebration of the year, with a Secret Santa lunch in Wetherspoons, followed by a trek to one of some friends’ house for dessert, parlour games and quartet.
We were a bit disorganised this year, despite deciding to start arranging it in October. The names were only drawn last weekend, and we also couldn’t decide on how many people there would be — so we met up in ‘Spoons to make sure there were no problems with cooking in the kitchens of various houses for unknown numbers of people, then trying to get them all together. I possibly would have offered to do it — except I did the cooking last year, and spent about three days panicking about it, so we decided that was a bad idea.
Secret Santa – The Challenge
I had decided that I was going to knit something for my person. I drew a guy, which immediately makes things complicated — I find women so much easier to knit for because they like accessories as well as useful things, which I tend to prefer knitting. After some planning, I settled on a black scarf with a white fringe, and gold embroidery on it.
This was fine in principle; I can whip up a scarf in a couple of days, and the only part I thought was going to cause me any trouble was the embroidery, which was going to be lettering in phrases we associate with this particular friend. That is, until I went out on Friday night…and spent most of Saturday in a horrifically hungover state, with a headache the size of Brazil and such an unsteady stomach that walking up the stairs was a challenge that eclipsed the scarf problem spectacularly.
Saturday night found me feeling much better, tucked in bed with a film on my iPad, furiously knitting into the wee hours. Around 4 am I got really cold and crawled under the duvet to get warm. I woke up at 10 am, offered one expletive as I realised I had fallen asleep, which thoroughly confused JS, and started knitting again.
Secret Santa – the meal
To cut the rest of a rather long and tedious story short, the scarf didn’t get finished and I had to give him a place-holder card present. I will complete it tonight, and will present it to him on Saturday next week. I was the only one who failed this year — everyone else gave and received some lovely gifts, particularly yours truly, who got the book “Knitted Cakes” by Susan Penny and four more skeins of really yummy yarn to add to the ever-growing stash.
The meal was good — JS and I drank three pints of Christmas Ale and some Cranberry and Cinnamon Kopperburg, and were fed mountains of dessert back at Inglethorpe. Our flatmate made mojitos for everyone, and we made mulled cider. We had a mini Christmas quartet rehearsal for a gig we are playing in Waterstones tonight.
JS and I left when I started getting a bit grouchy (after a quick lesson in dancing a jive), and got home at midnight completely satisfied.
Much love,
Corrie xx
