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Christmas dinner with friends
We celebrated our 11 year anniversary and Christmas season with good friends of ours, two couples that we regularly get together with for dinners and activities. This is our third Christmas family style potluck we do with them (Lauren, Andrew, Brandy, and Zach) and we work hard creating the menu together to make it not only delicious, but seamless!
We love to chip in and bring what we are good at making to the dinner. I’m not a fan of potlucks to be honest, but with close friends who you know will contribute delicious food, show up on time and care about the taste of the entire meal, you can’t go wrong with a family style potluck dinner!
This was our menu:
- Rotisserie chickens (already cooked from the deli, 2 is plenty for 6)
- 2 Cranberry sauces, the Trader Joe’s traditional cranberry sauce and the Cranberry Orange Relish
- Sparkling cider and wine
- Sweet Potato Casserole (a Ruth Chris Steakhouse recipe)
- Green Bean Casserole
- Biscuits with Pumpkin Butter (a Dream Dinners side)
- Ceasar Salad
- Chocolate Silk Pie
The side lace plates are from Williams-Sonoma, the bird plates are from Pottery Barn (on sale now, past Thanksgiving I don’t put out the turkey), and the chargers and plates are old from Ballard Designs, Bunny Williams. I am glad I have these green ones because I use them year round and not just for Christmas. The flatware is Ralph Lauren and one of the best investments I bought early in our marriage and we use them daily and they are durable, and feel so heavy when you eat with them. This style is now discontinued but if I can give any advice to anyone, buy Ralph Lauren flatware. Buy a set of 10 and if you have to buy them a few every few weeks to get your collection, do it. It will be the last flatware you buy.
The 22″ cake server with cloche was a recent purchase, and the 3 tier round server is WOW! I just bought them both for the upcoming parties I’m hosting this month, which is 3. And I have family coming in town yay!
I polished up all my silver trays and bowls, all thrifted items over the years and they are just sparkling for the holidays!
After dinner we headed into the living room and played a few rounds of 90s bingo. But we made it a bit more fun, thanks to Zach’s idea.
Instead of announcing the names of the item which gets boring after a round, the announcer had to give hints to what the item could be. Yes that’s tricky, there might be more than one answer, but you decide!
It was hilarious to guess and give hints then check to see if we got them right after someone called bingo.
After a few rounds we headed back to the dining room for dessert.
I have begun to ask guests if they would like coffee after dinner with dessert, and we have lots of Nespresso decaf and everyone can’t believe how delicious it is! We had some with Lauren’s chocolate slip cake and caught up some more before moving to the garden room to talk personal careers, finances, and give advice.
And this scene is one of my favorites at the end of a night and always will be. My friends always help clean up (we got dinner dishes all put away) and I am so grateful. The small things like this can be left, and easily cleaned up and I love seeing it when company has left. The feeling of great energized conversation and fun lingers. It’s like a story of what happened here. I’ve always thought and felt it and recently heard a podcast and someone said the same thing and I was excited to know it wasn’t just me who loves seeing a table like this.
I hope you are having a healthy and wonderful holiday season so far! My next party is on Tuesday night! So we clean, prep and do it again for my girlfriends who are coming over for an ornament exchange party!
Enjoying the sweetest hostess gifts, Brandy’s homemade cinnamon rolls I wait for every year. Lauren and Andrew are realtors and have a signature candle that smells like Frasier Fir and it was in this beautiful candle! So cute!
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