You’ll notice that I haven’t blogged in awhile and I am the one most  stymied by this.  How could I have not blogged when I’ve cooked so much in the last 4-6 weeks and had 1 week of vacation during the week of Thanksgiving and then another during Christmas week? Then I realized that it was because we hosted Thanksgiving, had houseguests and hosted two Christmas parties.

I am no longer stymied.

I’ll skip the details on Thanksgiving, except to say that this happened.

For the first Christmas party our friends had this brilliant idea of making each other gifts instead of buying ones.  I was down with that–very Amish, very Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I mean, after making 6 jars of apple butter, 4 jars of pumpkin butter, 2 jars of dulce de leche, 2 pans each of croissant and panettone bread puddings I was all set to raise a barn right alongside the Lapps of Lancaster.  I warned Pru that if I started to talk about making cheese (found a recipe for it, not that hard!) and churning butter that it was time for an intervention.  It was loads of fun and work but truth be told, for next year I’m strongly considering hitting Banana Republic for a couple of scarves for these aforementioned friends.

Our bounty for the first Christmas party consisted of homemade biscuits, pumpkin butters, sausage, blueberry french toast casserole, breakfast strata and other carbs enough to feed a small African country.

The second Christmas party was for my family and as it is every year, was held at our house.  This year, I got smart and decided to put everyone to work.  Under Pru’s expert tutelage, my cousin Oliver carved the prime rib, other cousins plated the food and another was the mixologist for the evening.  Everyone liked helping out and feeling useful and Pru and I definitely felt less stressed at trying to coordinate everything by ourselves.

We set up earlier in the day.  Tried to keep it simple with white linen and plates, red runner

I like to use these little ball ornaments to label the food being served.  As if it would stop people from eating food they didn’t recognize. 

Pru came up with this great idea to display our Christmas cards.  He didn’t even consult Pinterest

This is my favorite tree topper of all time.  My Dad and I bought it at Walgreens for like $5.  I’ve had it for about 30 years. 

I did not take pictures of the food because despite all the help, I was still running around.  But these two are arguably my favorite of the night as they embody what Christmas is all about for me…

Family

Cigars and stogies by the fire pit.

Have a great 2015!