Holiday Soiree

Our neighborhood had a holiday party this year and we hosted it at our house. It was a potluck so I only had to make the few things that I signed up for, which was a nice change of pace (literally!) from our usual parties.

We used Lucky Potluck as our sign-up sheet and it worked out really well. I recommend the site if you have similar needs. The best thing about it was that only the organizer had to provide an email address; everyone else just used the link to get to our potluck and then they were able to add their name and what they wanted to bring without giving contact info first. I was the organizer and the only thing Lucky Potluck sent me was a quick follow-up survey on how the site fulfilled my needs, which I was happy to fill out.

Since I didn’t have to stress (too much) about the food, I was able to stress instead about the decorating. I was mostly concerned with the dining room since that’s where the food was going. I had this idea of using candy canes as wallpaper and it looked as good in person as it did in my head. People were pretty impressed with my ability to stick candy to the wall.

Of course, I have the tree up in the bay window and then I added berry garland to the two floating shelves on the wall opposite the candy canes.

The buffet served as dessert central. I made the cupcakes and a batch of Peanut Butter Texas Sheet Cake Bars.

I ended up with hot pink frosting instead of red. Luckily, we kept the lights low in the house during the party so the cupcakes weren’t as Barbie-tastic as they appear in the photo.

I made doctored-up chocolate cupcakes with Andes peppermint bits in them, then made that white chocolate peppermint buttercream, the same one I used on the brownie pie. That stuff is goo-OOD! Just so people had some idea of what they might be eating, I stuck a mini candy cane in each cupcake.

One last look in the dining room. We pushed the table over to the side and lifted the light so people would have room to move around.

In the kitchen, I put Christmas lights up on top of the cabinets. Of course, now we like how that looks and adding lights up there and a switch down below might be a winter project.

I set the drinks up on the kitchen table.

I made a Pomegranate Martini and we also had a non-alcoholic punch and some sangria. I made some signs to go with each drink.

For mine:

For the sangria:

And the non-alcoholic punch:

We got a galvanized bucket from Lowes for about $13 and I used it to keep wine and vodka cold.

If you’re looking for a non-alcoholic punch, this Jingle Juice (a.k.a. Apple Orchard Punch) was tasty. I may or may not have spiked mine with vodka…

I made some other signs, thinking everyone could take turns having their pictures taken. You know, a version of the trendy photobooth pictures, but our photobooth was our laundry room.

I borrowed a Santa hat from Scott and Kara, but I think I was the only one who used that prop.

The Santa hat didn’t make clean-up any easier, but I suppose you could call it my spoonful of sugar.

I hope this was just the first annual Holiday Soiree and that more neighbors join in the fun as the years go by. After all, nothing fosters a sense of community like alcohol and innuendo the holiday spirit.