Holiday Party

With being out of town to Japan, New York and New Orleans this month I'm not going to be able to host a holiday party this year but I thought I'd share my Christmas decorations and food from my party last year.

For decorations I made table runners out of teal and white fabric. I also made pillows out of coordinating fabric and used white felt to add a snowflake motif on one of the pillows.

I kept things simple for my tree decorations with white lights, teal and silver ornament balls, pinecones that I spray painted silver and teal, and silver pipe cleaners that I twisted into spirals.

For the tables I filled vases with extra ornaments and some extra branches I trimmed from my tree. I also put some of the painted pinecones and ornaments in a wooden bowl on my serving table. 

I like to try to make some food ahead for my parties so I made three different cheese balls a few days before that just required garnishing before serving.  The lemon-parsley gougeres can be made ahead and then baked right before the guests come. I also made individual shrimp cocktails by putting a little bit of cocktail sauce in the bottom of a small glass with shrimp and a slice of lemon.  For something sweet I made honey-poached pears with marscapone drizzled with chocolate. I used whole small pears and cored them from underneath to keep the pear intact for presentation. I was happy that with so much I could make ahead everything was stress free for me at the party and I could spend my time enjoying the food with my guests instead of in the kitchen cooking.