You may want to get a glass of water, this is a long one!
Last year I decided that instead of doing individual gifts for close friends I would have a Dinner Party instead. It was so much fun to plan and attend. My friend Alisha is always up for a party and helped out a ton. This idea could easily be adapted to a couples dinner party, you could do a progressive dinner with neighbors if you are close with several of them, or you could just use some of the little ideas of things we did at the party.
First I made these invitations.
I combined a place card and favor into one as shown below.
We had a couple different appetizers as guests were arriving and then for our meal we had Christmas salad, Cornish Game Hens with Wild Rice Stuffing, Homemade Rolls, and a fruit salad. For dessert we had Hot Chocolate and a delicious cake that Alisha made.
After dinner we painted picture frames and then added the word "JOY" to them with vinyl lettering. I got the frames from Micheals for $1 and the vinyl lettering online from www.iasign.com. Just a little holiday decoration they could take home to remember their evening.
Then we had a dessert gift exchange. Each girl brought a favorite holiday dessert in a nice serving dish to give away (serving piece included). We did the exchange white elephant style so you could steal back and forth to try and get what you wanted.
Adrianne's tray of chocolates from Harry & David and Chocolate Mousse Cups
I made English Trifle
Alisha made a cranberry pear tart
Kelly made a chocolate peppermint trifle
All in all it was a great night with friends, food, and visiting. This years is already in the works!
submitted by Emily(delighfuldistraction.blogspot.com)
8 comments:
That looks like a ton of fun! great idea! I love it!
I *adore* this idea.
Thank you for sharing all the pictures and how-to.
What is the favor? It's hard for me to tell? Fancy chocolate-covered pretzels? It's beautiful.
Hilary,
Yes, they were fancy pretzels from a fancy tin I got at Crate and Barrel! ;)
I love to entertain and when I saw this on your family blog I knew I would have to copy. Do you have any of the recipes for the things you made? I would love the dessert giveaway recipes too. I wish this time of year didn't seem so short so that I could do all the fun things. I'm definitely going to try and replicate this for the ladies I V.T.
Thanks for sharing!
Megan, I have some of the recipes. I'll round them up in the next few days and email them to you. And I totally know what you mean about this time of year being too short to do it all! I feel the same way.
THIS IS SUCH A GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!!!! How fun!!!!!!
Thanks for all the details!!
love this idea. toying with a version of it. i lvoe to get together with my gals but don't do it often enough
also, i remember reading about this last year and thinking how cool you were to do this! :) knowing you better this year, i see that you are always cool and very sweet!
The holidays are a great time to remind your remote team that you appreciate their hard work. There’s no better way to give your employees a well-deserved break than hosting a Virtual Christmas party. Here’s a look at 10 ideas for online Christmas party to celebrate the holiday season with your team.
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