On Saturday night, we had a Christmas party at the church. We are on the social committee and when they were looking for ideas, we borrowed from Rebecca and Jeremy (see http://popsies.blogspot.com entry for Sunday October 10 2004) and their international day and suggested that the theme be 'an international Christmas' where people brought along food, Christmas music etc from a country that they are from or identify with. It was a huge success - some proclaimed it the best church social ever! We had a sign with a NZ flag saying "Christmas in New Zealand means summer sunshine, beach BBQs and friends and family celebrating the birth of Christ". So I made vegetarian kebabs (good BBQ-fare!), mini pavlovas with kiwifruit on them and a huge fruit platter with pineapple, rockmelon (cantaloupe) etc. Jamie had a recipe for a lime punch made with lemonade (that's Sprite or Sierra Mist here), and fresh limes and lime sorbet floating in it (hence the limes in the red container in the picture). We also made a delicious winter drink as we were responsible for bringing drinks. It is made with apple juice, cranberry juice, sugar, cloves and cinnamon sticks. I made it the night before so that the flavours could marinate and we had it heating in our new crock pot - it was incredible. Here is Jamie checking on the pavlovas before we left to ensure that they were suitable! Just as well as we didn't have any leftovers to bring home at all. It was amazing what people brought as there are people from all sorts of interesting countries such as Haiti, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Croatia, and Finland. Very yummy!