Monday, January 2, 2012

Christmas Open House Party

Don't you just hate it when you have a large gathering, and don't take very many photos? I had SO intended to do so!

I invited 40 to 60 people to our house the Friday before Christmas, as a Christmas Open House party, and to celebrate Scott and Elizabeth's wedding (in October.) So for months, I've been baking and cooking and baking, and stuffing my freezer to the brim! My wonderful sister-in-law, Maria, has been consulting with me on recipes, and she sagely recommended the Silver Palate Chocolate mousse (pretty red ramekins, from Maria, in the photo above). I substituted Kahlua for the Grand Marnier. I'll never again make the Chocolate Fantasy, in the little flared dishes, to the left of the chocolate mousse. Pretty, but nasty tasting. I don't get it; I did a trial run and liked them well enough. Most of the 24 little cups went into the garbage disposal after the party.

The punch with peppermint ice cream (foreground, right) was a definite hit! See the little white cups behind the punch bowl? I managed to buy them from a dollar store, 48 for $6. At that price, I would never give the "Northwest Airlines" stamped on the bottom a second thought!

Bottom left: the 3 tiered plate was inspired by Rachel Ray, and episode in which plates and tall glasses or vases are arranged together to make extra 3 tiered servers. I used a tall candy dish at the base.

Biscotti and raspberry linzer cookies are two of my favorite Christmas cookies.

Above: before the party, but before I put most of the items out.

And these two beautiful faces belong to Saxon and Scott. Bet you can figure out which is which!

A few of you marveled at the extraordinary ability of Saxon and Ruby (yesterday's video) to avoid knocking things off the coffee table while they wrestled and raced around the living room. They really were quite agile, and we were able to successfully tell them to leave the Christmas tree alone. But the first night, before the party, we were not as successful. Ruby's tail managed to down two glasses of red wine onto the carpeting, before we adult humans caught on and watched our glasses carefully.

3 comments:

Gypsy Girl(Brenda) said...

Wow you sure did put out quite an array of food. It all looks so good.

Reds said...

Now that's a lot of food!! Love the dishes you used!! So clever!!

Susan Beth said...

You must have been exhausted after preparing all of that. I wouldn't have had energy to take even the few photos you did take!