Saturday, December 26

Friends

This week is all about friends, and how fitting as it's a holiday week and a lot of us get together with friends and family. We live in New Zealand and most of our family is still in the UK. But lucky for us we have some good friends over here who we can have fun with and today was no exception.

As has become our annual ritual, on December 26th we have a BBQ with my very good friend, and amazing author, Amanda Ashby and her family (and one of my brothers who also lives in NZ). I haven't laughed so much in ages, especially as the men decided to drink as many beers from different places around the world as they could (my husband manages to 'collect' them). This was made even funnier when we had the annual mince pie tasting by Amanda's husband - who is a mince pie guru, and knowing how every year something goes wrong with mine, it's usually a scary moment. Today was no exception, especially when he turned it over and could see how the underneath wasn't cooked properly and all the mincemeat was oozing out..... their saving grace was the amount of whiskey I'd added to the mincemeat!!!

But I was redeemed by the chocolate biscuit cake..... phew!!!

So did you celebrate with friends? And how was it?

4 comments:

Wendy Toliver said...

That sounds like a great time, wish I could've crashed your BBQ. But I have to say, I'd have to skip the mincemeat pie. I'm not much of a pie person in general, but mincemeat grosses me out!

Sara Hantz said...

I didn't think you had mince pies in the US - they're made with lots of dried fruit, sort of like a christmas pudding or christmas cake, only nicer!!

Amanda Ashby said...

Wendy - it would've been AWESOME if you and your family could've crashed the BBQ!!!! I'm not a fan of mince pies either though Sara makes a killer chocolate biscuit cake, which you would've loved (if you could've convinced her son to hand any over!!!!!!)

Melissa Walker said...

This ritual sounds so nice! I get together with my three best high school friends once a year in February, and it's always such a treat! I love friend rituals.