Ninth day of Christmas - A Lidl Christmas Party

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, nine ladies dancing. Well, no, he didn't. I had a bunch of choristers singing Nine Lessons and Carols. As I've talked about in my other blog, I attending evensong almost every Sunday at the Church of St John's, Princes Street, Edinburgh. On the last Sunday before Christmas they do a service of Nine Lessons and Carols, followed by mulled wine to go with the choir Secret Santa present opening. As top hanger-on of the choir, this year I agreed to do the mulled wine and nibbles, and I thought what better way to cater than a Lidl party.

Price: c £45

Score (out of 5): 3 1/2

Review: so, my shopping list consisted of:

• Favorina gingerbread assortment (lebkuchen)
• Favorina mini spekulatius
• Favorina cherry and marzipan chocolates
• Deluxe sea salt and crushed black peppercorn crisps
• Deluxe mature cheddar and red onion crisps
• Deluxe gravadlax salmon with dried tomatoes
• Multiseed bloomer bread
• Oatlands oranges
• Oatlands lemons
• Favorina mini spekulatius
• Favorina gingerbread assortment
• 8 mini Christmas crackers
• Bourdeaux Supérieur
• Crabbies Ginger Wine (doesn't really count as I can buy it anywhere)
• Snowy lodge sugared almonds

The wines, lemons and oranges went into mulled wine using the Guardian’s perfect mulled wine recipe and the food was served as was. It was just an experiment really to see if I could cater for a wee Christmas party from Lidl. First off, I should’ve heeded Sara Dorman’s advice on the seventh day of Christmas to make sure you get to Lidl as soon as the Christmas stuff starts appearing; because once it’s gone it’s gone. So, if you’re looking at my shopping list above and thinking “that’s a bit random”, well it is. That’s what was left on the shelves, pretty much. No mince pies; no more stollen; and I’m glad I had bought the lebkuchen a month ago to bulk it out.

But, what I had was very nice indeed. Particular highlights were the marzipan, cherry, chocolate bites. As I will describe in one of tomorrow’s two posts, I’m not a marzipan fan, but these were really very nice indeed. The gravadlax was very nice as well, with half-decent farmed salmon. The cheese and onion crisps were good too – I like odd flavour combinations, so I thought these went well with the lebkuchen. The sea salt and pepper crisps were a bit too peppery for my tastes. Overall though, I would strongly recommend Lidl for catering for your Christmas party.

And as a Christmas treat, you can enjoy this phone recording of the choir singing The Holly and the Ivy (or the last two verses anyway):