Christmas 2020, where to start? For us, in the UK we headed back into lockdown, which was heart-breaking for a lot of people. My family and I don’t celebrate Christmas but we needed some fun and positivity, so I planned a festive day and cooked a delicious dinner! It was super last minute and I had just over a week to get everything together. Being in lockdown caused many limitations since I had to purchase everything online and delivery was a nightmare! Despite all that, I managed to get hold of what I needed and we had the best day! Keep on reading if you want to see the little details and get some ideas for Christmas 2021 (ok, that felt weird to write).
One of the trends I kept seeing pop up everywhere was mini Christmas villages, it was being incorporated into ornaments, decorations and table settings and I knew that was THE theme. Initially, I wanted to buy a bunch of miniature house ornaments but one: I couldn’t find the exact style I required and two: it cost a pretty penny. So, I decided to DIY it! Etsy has shops selling templates of festive houses/ buildings that you print out, cut and glue together. They’re supposed to be advent calendars but I used them to create my cute Christmas Village. I also attempted some origami and made little Christmas trees out of green paper which turned out great. All of this combined with some pillar candles created the most perfect centrepiece. Adding a simple table cloth and linen napkins elevated the overall look without taking attention away from the main feature.
Each place setting consisted of layered plates laid on top of woven placemats, I then added silver cutlery which was folded into the linen napkins. I also managed to fish out the reindeer name cards from last year, luckily they fit the look perfectly. My sister designed and printed dinner menus in A6 that topped each place setting, it was my favourite detail.
We started the day with the most adorable and delicious breakfast. I didn’t want to make anything too complicated that required a lot of work and time as I was about to spend the whole day in the kitchen. These were simply pre-made pancakes covered in Biscoff spread with pretzels for ears, a cookie and fruit for a nose and sugar googly eyes.
Dinner consisted of all the typical components that make up a roast. I served the food on the kitchen counter in the trays that they were cooked in so everyone could help themselves, buffet style. I pre-made a pecan pie the day before to have as a dessert which I paired with vanilla bean ice-cream and it was lush!
Lastly I constructed a snack/ hot chocolate tray for us to enjoy later in the evening and before you judge, if you can’t be totally fat on Christmas when can you?! The tray was made up with an assortment of sweet treats as well as all the fixings for hot chocolate. If you have TikTok I’m sure you’ve seen the hot chocolate bomb everywhere, I didn’t have the moulds to do it myself so I used Kinder Eggs as a short-cut to make them. These were added to hot oat milk and we had marshmallows, chocolate chips and Mikado sticks to decorate!
All in all, it was a nice break away from reality, a day filled with food, family and festive films, the Christmas trinity if you will. Anyway, I hope you all had a good holiday and a happy new year! Let me know in the comments what you’re looking forward to this year.
And Everything Else 