"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

If you missed last month's post, find it here: "Food, Friends and Festivities."

If we could sum up December in one word, it would be BUSY! December is usually a busy month, no matter where we have lived, but this year, it was exceptionally busy. 

We started off our month like any other with a Birmingham Vegans pizza meet up.

Huge turn out this month. Photo Credit: Thom Milner.

The Wellington Real Ale Pub has a cat that hangs out upstairs.

We had a wonderful time at the pizza night, as we do every pizza night. We ate good food, and hung out with great people.

We bought an Amazon Fire tablet to help with our blogging, and to skype with our families better. We got it for 34.99 GBP in a Boxing Day sale.

We spent the next few days getting ready for our up coming trips.

On December 4th, a couple of our friends and us went on a road trip to the Vegfest in Glasgow for the weekend. We had an excellent time, and it was great to see Glasgow again. To see our Glasgow weekend click here.

We were back in Birmingham for 2 days and then we went to our friend Plantbased Nurse's house for a potluck style dinner with a few of our friends from Birmingham Vegans. We all lived near Bearwood so we decided to meet up.

December 9th, we flew to Dublin, Ireland with a couple of our friends for 8 days. We took the coach bus to other cities, and tried to see as much of Ireland in the time that we had there. To see our trip to Ireland click here.

Waiting for our flight to Ireland

When we got back to Birmingham, we both had to work the next day.. and for the rest of the month.

The sun rising waiting for the bus to work.

In the spirit of Christmas, the Birmingham Vegans decided to get together for a Christmas dinner. We went to the British Oak for a three course meal. It was amazing. (Unfortunately, only one of us could attend this event, as the other Wanderlust Vegan had a work Christmas party to attend - Dinner was also supplied for this event, and ended up turning out pretty well)

Starter:
Sweet potato, sweet corn and chilli soup with warm foccacia

Mains: 
Luxury nut and cranberry roast with seasonal vegetables

Dessert:
Sticky toffee pudding with custard

The following night was the staff Christmas party from a place I worked in May. We were both able to attend this Christmas party and enjoyed our time with them until the wee hours of the night. We ended up crashing on a friends couch that night.

Chameleon Bar

The next morning wasn't too kind to us, but we had a lot planned for the day. We quickly went home, got ready and headed back to city centre.

We got to city centre and met our friends at the Birmingham Cruelty free fair.

We got a NY cheese cake and an amazing tofu sandwich from Unless Hardcore Vegan Catering. They travel around the UK going to different events.

There was a great turn out to the event.

We left the cruelty free fair with a couple friends and headed to Costco. Rumor has it they sell 700g Hoummous. We bought one.

Costco!

Turns our the Canadian Circus was next to Costco. We had no idea that the Canadian Circus is a thing. Is it an animal circus or just a Cirque du Soleil type deal? We hope it's the latter.

OMG

After we left Costco, we got some goodies to bring to a meal that we were all invited to that night.

On our way to Tamworth, the car started to feel funny. We pulled over and checked it out. We had run over a screw. Since the screw still had a washer on it the tire didn't deflate.

Screw in the tire (tyre).

We had to fix the tire before heading to our friends house.

10 minutes later we were on our way again. We still ended up arriving on time to our friends for dinner.

Starter: Mushrooms and Garlic with a bun

Main: Schnitzel, mash, stuffing, brusselsprouts, carrots and corn

Dessert: Chocolate mousse with a ginger base, coconut, raspberries, with raspberry nice cream

We had an excellent dinner at our friends and we played poker for prizes which was really fun. After that we talked for awhile. It was a nice evening.

The next day we went to Plant Based Nurses's house and made some falafel wraps together.

He made us some chocolate frozen banana ice cream with peanut butter which was excellent.

Later that day we went to see the new Star Wars film which was decent. No spoilers. If  you're a Star Wars fan you have to see it.

The next day we went to the Church pub in the Jewellery Quarter with some of our friends from the Birmingham Vegans group. The Church have a meat free Monday deal where all veggie and vegan food is 50% off. We even managed to get our non-vegan flat mate to hang out with vegans.

Afterward we went to an improv show that one of our friends was performing in. Aside from a drunk girl ruining parts of the show it went really well and our friend did a good job.

Brazilian Vegetable Moqueca

Shia No-Beouf Burger

We worked for the next few days and then we got ready for our Christmas weekend away in Lincolnshire. Our friends welcomed us into their home with open arms. We had a lovely time during our first British Christmas. To see out blog post on our British Christmas click here.

On New Year we went over to a friends place and he made us curry for dinner. He made a spicy lentil curry and a mock chicken korma. Both of them were delicious. Now we are awaiting our invitation back over for more of his fabulous curry.

We hung around his house with a bunch of our friends, drinking and bringing in the new year together. We went to The Church around 1130 so we could do the countdown with lots of people. It was a really good night.

Party at The Church

We left The Church around 2 am and headed to another friends for some sweet potato wedges. It was a really good night, and a great way to bring in the new year in England.

For our New Years resolution we have decided to commit to posting a new blog post every Wednesday starting in January. We are very excited to take our blog to this next step. We will have posts on veganism, travel, our trips and inspirational posts. For these monthly updates, they will be posted on the first Wednesday of every month.

To see what we are up to next month, find it here: "Veganuary"