To escape the monotony of lockdown, me and my housemate came up with an idea to take alternate Thursday's and create a theme night based on whatever we fancied. 'Theme Night Thursdays' we now call them (because lockdown has made us unhinged) and they're actually the highlight of our week now. We even joked that we should start doing this as a side-hustle post-Covid, because what else is lockdown good for than to make you think you've missed your life's calling/you should be CEO of your own company/if you could get paid for watching Netflix you'd be a millionaire.
Anyway, we've actually had so many people message us saying they're living for our theme nights (lockdown is making them unhinged too), or they wish they could do it at home. So I thought I'd pull together a little post on the theme nights we've done so far and how you can recreate them. Who knows how much longer we're going to be in lockdown for, so maybe this could be a way to mix it up for date night, a way to do something other than watch TV, or just a way to feel like you're actually somewhere else. They've actually all been really easy to set up - we mainly use things around the flat we already have that could work. So they're actually more budget-friendly than you'd think, and if you have an ALDI or Lidl near you, the food doesn't have to cost loads either. It's all about getting creative!
I wanted to anchor link each theme and have them all on this post to make it easier for people to navigate - however, Wix won't let me use the usual anchor link code (I'm regretting the Wordpress to Wix switch), if anyone can help, please do. I've made each theme its own post, except Greece, which is just below. So click through for the theme you like the sound of!
This was such a good theme - I really felt like I was somewhere else (and not the living room, which I've come to know absolutely every inch of over the last year).
Dress code: Anything white.
Food:
Beth found a blog that a woman had written with recipes etc from her travels, and found a lot of the recipes on there. We had Greek bread (I got overexcited and ate so much of this before half of the food came out - classic), tzatziki, red pepper and feta dip, balsamic and olive oil dips, chicken gyros, fava, olives, breaded calamari (air fryer) and Greek salad.
Drinks:
We had a couple of Mythos beers and then went on to white wine, so if you can find Greek beer and wine you're on to a winner.
The room and music:
Beth really pulled it out the bag with the room for this - it looked so good! We've got the YouTube app on our TV so she searched for Santorini scenery to play in the background, and did another Spotify search for Greek music. Then she took our Christmas tree fairylights and hung them up with tape high across our living room - we didn't realise just how long they were til she did this! It gave it a proper outdoor European feel, like we were in Athens again. Then she filled a little box we had with our bottles of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, a few lemons, and some Greek bread she'd bought. She also pinched one of my unframed pictures of Santorini, and placed it on the table with the lanterns we have. Then she made a menu, googling what 'Penwith Bistro' would be in Greek and writing that on it, with the symbol for home - she did this on a piece of white card too and put it on the wall, and also made us some Greek name cards... so cute! I think the only thing she bought, decor wise was fake ivy from Amazon (she reckoned we'd use it again - which is probably true), and she draped it over the dining table, coffee table, sofas and blinds.
I'm not sure what we're going to do in the weeks coming up, so watch this space. If anyone has any ideas, throw them my way! I hope I've shown that you actually don't need a lot to recreate the theme in your living room - it's basically a case of thinking of anything you have that could work for your theme, and bringing it in.
Comments