Christmas Drinks ????

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Brissles

Brissles

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As a straw poll, how many on here go to another house (friends/neighbours/family) for Christmas drinks ? and even more so, pitching up with a £30 gift from L'Occitane / Kelly Hoppen / Cooks Essential set of pans ??? instead of a bottle of wine ?

Because I don't, and I honestly don't know anyone else who "do" Christmas Drinks anymore, (or ever did !) Although I can imagine those that belong to various 'clubs' tennis/bowls/tiddleywinks might socialise in this way.
 
I dont but my sister does as she has a wide range of activities she’s involved in so it covers several evenings .From memory she used to take small nibbles/mince pies or a bottle. Certainly not gifts - heavens she would be out a fortune at 30 squid a time
 
Occasionally yes. One of my closest friends always throws a xmas drinks do, usually around the 2nd week of December. Bring yourself, bring a bottle. I do exchange gifts with her and if I'm unlikely to see her before xmas I'll pop her present under her xmas tree. Other than that we regularly visit other friends places and they visit ours, we'll have a drink but giving gifts isn't part of it. Birthday drinks - different, I'll take a present along. If its somebody you normally exchange xmas gifts with, different, and like I say if you're not gonna see them before xmas it's a handy way of giving them their present and card and saving on postage costs. I wouldn't be handing over bath products and soft furnishings just because!
I would also consider this a little rude and inappropriate. You've been invited out of the goodness of the host's heart - hand them over a set of saucepans or an expensive set of bath smellies, then that makes it all about you. It turns it around making them feel obliged to concentrate on thanking you....."Oh wow, you shouldn't have, thanks, that's amazing" and possibly shaming those who've brought themselves and a bottle of Chateau Lidl. Q will say ****** anything to try and persuade viewers to buy things they don't need by making gift giving opportunities out of anything. "Don't just thank the driver when you hop off the bus in town - give him a set of pans"!
 
I’ve been invited to Christmas drinks for the last few years. One set of neighbours don’t want you to bring anything because it is all set up and planned, another is more casual so I take a bottle. I don’t take anything other than booze, although this year I have made up a set of travel sized MB for a couple who have been kind to me and who like to go away on short breaks.
 
Our best friends live at the bottom of our street, so we do have a few drinks Christmas Eve and New years Eve. In the Summer we sit out in one another's gardens some Saturdays. We take a bottle of plonk and some lager with us and they do the same. I'm not a big drinker but love their company. Only once have I ever given a present, that was when I had been to the Body Shop and got a heap of after Christmas shower gels at a knock down price and I gave Ruth a couple. She was delighted. But that's it.

What the Q presenters are suggesting is ludicrous, who has the money to give expensive presents instead of a bottle of Morry's sparkling wine? It's dear enough at Christmas without that! If I did, it puts them in the position of feeling that they have to as well. None of us can afford that.
 
I have a friend and every time she calls with someone she brings a small jar of home made (either by herself or from a craft fair) chutney or jam or biscuits. It’s never required but she is a person from the countryside where it is a tradition so we just accepted with the grace it is given in.
 
I don’t go round to friends’ for drinks but, thereagain, I don’t drink anyway.
 
June suggests that we take a Frank Usher top as a gift if we are invited to someone's house for a Christmas celebration instead of the customary bottle, flowers or chocolates. Bad idea for so many reasons. The tried and true gifts to the host will always be the right thing to do. (Would anyone really give a set of pots and pans to someone they don't know well ?) I've been to a few drinks parties in the past, and couldn't wait to leave the place.
 
Grizelda said:
June suggests that we take a Frank Usher top as a gift if we are invited to someone's house for a Christmas celebration instead of the customary bottle, flowers or chocolates. Bad idea for so many reasons. The tried and true gifts to the host will always be the right thing to do. (Would anyone really give a set of pots and pans to someone they don't know well ?) I've been to a few drinks parties in the past, and couldn't wait to leave the place.
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What a ridiculous suggestion! Clothing, wall art, ornaments are all things that are personal. It doesn't matter how well we think we know somebody's taste, it's very rare we'll get it right! And to make matters worse, if it's something somebody's bought for you, you feel obliged to wear it/display it . A friend of mine gave me a top for xmas one year, I was going through a phase of wearing bold and bright clothing. It was black with big bold flowers with big flappy sleeves, not only was it a bad fit on me, it was hideous and I hated it. Had I been initially attracted to it in a shop and tried it on, the awful way it hung on me would've stopped me buying it. So a total no no as far as I'm concerned. Unless you're 100% sure that the gift is exactly what the person would want or appreciate - don't go there!
Most people are glad of a bottle of wine, a box of chocs or a bunch of fresh flowers as a casual thank you gift. I'm still reeling from the hideous "shoe fund" money box I was presented with as a gift for hosting a dinner party...I couldn't give a damn about shoes or handbags, and I hate hideous ornaments!
 
I used to go for drink to one friends, took some home made savoury biscuits. How I wish I had kept the recipe. But as their income was was about 5 times mine and I was above average income I could never buy them anything they couldn't easily buy for themselves or easily get.

If I was invited again I'd find a quick easily biscuit recipe. Not cheese straws but that kind of thing. But with so many allergies and food sensitivities today how safe is it to take stuff?
 
When we see friends & relatives at Christmas it's always for a full celebration, not just drinks. We have some really nice neighbours but nobody does a drinks party, a term that makes me think of Margot & Jerry in The Good Life*. The Q loves these scenarios & like so much of the drivel that the tat peddlers & BAs spout it's just padding out the hour; Jenny Blackhurst often describes an item as suitable to be worn at a christening...
*I love this programme & have been compared to Mrs Leadbetter on many occasions.
 
loveallthingsitalian said:
Stratto just exactly is it you do in the dark that you need all these torches?
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Please don't go there.

Pe-covid we used to do occasional Christmas drinks with friends and neighbours but the most we ever took was chocolates/a bottle of plonk or (for posh friends who really appreciated that sort of thing), something small and hand-made. Never, ever would I dream of taking anything more expensive because that looks as if you're buying friendship and would have been seen in some circles as bad form, unless it was an actual Christmas present.
 
We had weekend drinks with our best friends for well over forty years we took turns a week about and the four of us played card and had snacks and drinks and laughed a lot. They have both passed away and we miss them every day. Great times. We never ever gave each other gifts only on special birthdays or anniversaries and even then it wasn’t anything massively expensive.
 
Twilight said:
When we see friends & relatives at Christmas it's always for a full celebration, not just drinks. We have some really nice neighbours but nobody does a drinks party, a term that makes me think of Margot & Jerry in The Good Life*. The Q loves these scenarios & like so much of the drivel that the tat peddlers & BAs spout it's just padding out the hour; Jenny Blackhurst often describes an item as suitable to be worn at a christening...
*I love this programme & have been compared to Mrs Leadbetter on many occasions.
Click to expand...
That the last time I play the tart for you Jerry - love it
 
loveallthingsitalian said:
Stratto just exactly is it you do in the dark that you need all these torches?
Click to expand...
Funnily enough, OH had a power cut 2 days ago when I was there!

Luckily. I'd given her a couple of torches as presents previously (she said she likes them).

And the week before, she was at an art retreat in deepest Cornwall with 12 artists, and took a wind up torch I'd given her years ago, which was very useful as she didn't have to worry about it running out of batteries and she used it a lot. The retreat had no internet, no phone, no TV, and a very unreliable mobile signal.
 

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