Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!

A time for joy, food, and most importantly, a time to be with the ones you love!
Last week (18.12.16) we hosted a Christmas dinner catchup for some of the people we love – our friends!

We managed to feed everyone so much, that we all slunk to the floor…and the couch…and make-shift chair-beds once the fourth and final dessert course was finished.
Our dinner ran so smoothly so I thought I would share a few simple decoration tricks and recipes to help you with your next hosting event.

Keys to a successful event:

     – Personal Touch 
I made personalised, individual Christmas ball-ball’s for everyone as a simple take-away gift, which also doubled as a great placement “card” or drink claimer. (See images below) To make these I bought some small ball-balls (my packet had three different types of gold) and a glitter glue pen. Make sure you have somewhere set up to keep the ball-ball’s upright after decorating them, so that the glitter glue doesn’t run and your ‘N’ becomes a ‘K’.

– Candles
I cannot stress enough how simple it can be to create a mood or add atmosphere with candles. The fragrance is such an added bonus! I used 3 gold taper candles from Dusk for the table decoration and they worked soooooo well! No drips of wax onto the table or any other messy issues.

– Banoffee Balls
My last trick, which I always have ready to go – are Banoffee Balls! They are literally the easiest thing to make and so delicious.

You will need:
– 1 Banana (ripe)
– 1 Packet of Marie (malt) Biscuits
– 1 Tin of Caramel (looks like sweetened condensed milk tin)
– Chocolate (for melting)

     Recipe:
               – Crush up the Marie Biscuits and place in bowl with banana and 3 quarters of the                        tin of caramel (around 160g).
– Mix all together and then form balls and place on tray.
               – Place tray in freezer and start to melt your chocolate over the stove. I use a                                 mixture of both milk and dark chocolate, but any kind will work.
               – Once the chocolate is ready, take out the balls and coat in chocolate. As they are                      cold, the chocolate should already start to harden, making everything a little                            easier to keep clean/in place on the tray.
               – Place back in the freezer until it is time to serve! (Allow time to warm up a little                       before serving)

     Alternatives:
               – Crush some extra biscuits to sprinkle on top of the Banoffee Balls.

Most importantly, have fun with everything that you do – holidays are a time for celebrating the things you love, with the ones you love! 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the wonderful people who take the time to read my blog.

xoxo Marleen