Holiday Entertaining

I say it every year- December is my favorite month! The hum of festivities for a whole month is always so fun to me, and I love the opportunities December brings to get together with friends and family. We hosted a little get together this past Sunday as a chance to see some friends we don't get to see often enough, and while it was a lot of work getting ready for it, we had a great time! Hank was a huge help in getting the entire house cleaned and the "bar" set up. We made our first trip to Costco to get the food, and then I spent a day and a half in the kitchen baking (seriously one of my favorite things to do.) I made 3 sweet treats, and the rest of the food just had to be warmed and/or assembled. I thought everything turned out great, and was glad that friends came and went throughout the 4 hours on Sunday afternoon. It was nice to toast the holidays with everyone!

The menu:

Cheese tray
Veggie tray with dill dip
Cranberry Meatballs
Spanakopita Triangles (from Costco)
Hot Corn Dip (our neighbor brought this amazing dip, and said she found the recipe on Pinterest. Not sure if this is the right one, but it was so ridiculously good!)

Sweets: Red Velvet Peppermint Brownies, Lemon Cookies, and Hot Chocolate Cupcakes
Drinks: Beer, Wine, Prosecco with Cranberry Juice, and a non-alcoholic Sparkling Pomegranate Juice

Simple evergreens and tulips made for a pretty little flower addition to the table.

Big thanks to my mom for letting me borrow so much of her entertaining dishes!

Christmas cheese tree idea from Pinterest! So easy to do, and it looked so pretty.

View of the sweets and veggie tray.

Girlfriends!!!

Below are a few of the treats that I made this year. They turned out great and are pretty enough to share if you like to give away baked goods as gifts. I didn't get a good picture of them, but the Red Velvet Peppermint Swirl Brownies that I made for the party were a huge hit!! You have to be careful not to over bake them, and I used peppermint oil (found at a bake shop) instead of extract. They are so, so delicious!! I also made Mini Chocolate Cupcakes with Hot Chocolate Frosting (I doubled the amount of hot chocolate to get a richer frosting). I had a hard time finding the itty-bitty marshmallows, so I just used a few of the small sized ones.

For my cookie exchange, I made Sparkly Lemon Cookies (the edible glitter was also purchased at the bake shop I frequent), and Chocolate Crinkle Kiss Cookies. I found the candy cane Hershey kisses at Target, and I thought they were a perfect touch for these.


                                      

                                      

Unfortunately, Hank and I were too busy talking to everyone, replenishing food, etc- that we didn't get any pictures of us together, or any of our guests. I wish we had been able to, but I was just glad we had so many people who took the time out of their day to come and visit with us!