Christmas with Friends

Every year my friends and I like to go for a meal at Christmas time, as we don't get to see each other as much as we would like through work and people being all over the place (geographically of course!) It is also a lot cheaper than buying presents for everyone of us, so that's what we do! 

Small look at the table decorations

This year we went to one of my local pubs called 'The House Martin' which is in New Milton in Hampshire. It is a Hall & Woodhouse pub which is a chain, however I think they have kept their own personality within the pub as it is absolutely beautiful. 

A snippet of the amazing decor in The House Martin, New Milton. 

The pub is in two sections, there is the bar area, with an amazing bar made out of copper along with sofa's, chairs and tables with a relaxed vibe. We were sat in the amazingly decorated main dining area, with bird cages hanging from the ceiling with lights in many of them. 

At the front of the dining area there was a massive glass window which just made the building even more impressive. This was an awesome setting for our Christmas meal, it helped that we were on a round table as well which means everyone can talk to everyone easily. 

Blurry but pretty good joke. 

The table was nicely decorated - a red table cloth with little stars dotted across it, massive wine glasses each with a napkin in it, along with a cute sign saying 'Merry Christmas Megan' written on it. I really wanted to take this home but decided not because it was such a lovely pub! 

Lovely decoration for the table, along with personalised table setting. 

We opted for a three course Christmas meal, which came to £18.99 each, which was really good value for money. For a starter I had 2 mini fried camembert with rocket salad and cranberry sauce. I was apprehensive about this, as I had never tried camembert cheese, but I decided to try it out, as you never know it could be the best thing you've ever tried. 

Baked Camembert starter

When cutting into it the top was crispy and the inside was deliciously gooey, it just oozed out to mix with the rocket, then when adding the cranberry sauce into the mix it just became even more delicious. 

For our main course we all had Roast Turkey, with green veg, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, pig in blanket and stuffing. It was wonderful. 

Roast Turkey Main

The turkey was perfectly cooked, and not dry in the slightest, along with the other components it was lovely - obviously not as good as a home cooked Christmas dinner, but it came a very close second! 

Then for the best part of any meal, the dessert! I opted for a Winter Mess, which already sounds wonderful, and it lived up to the hype. The meringue had a lovely texture, mixed with the double cream and a mix of blackberries, red currants, black currents and strawberries, you can not go wrong! 

Winter Mess desert

Some of the girls had a white chocolate blondie with a 'Santa Surprise', which none of us could guess would the surprise could be...

Santa Surprise on a Blondie desert

A Santa hat of course! It's so cute - such a great surprise. 

All in all we all had a lovely evening, catching up, laughing and just enjoying each others company, the setting made it just that little bit special along with the lovely food. I will definitely be going back to The House Martin pub again and again. 

Have you and your friends done anything similar to this, or do you do something completely different?

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