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Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category

New Year’s Entertaining Ideas

Posted in Entertaining at Home, Entertaining Ideas, Holidays, Party Theme, tagged , , , on December 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Planning on hosting a New Year’s Eve gathering this weekend? Good for you!

Today I’ll be sharing a few savvy entertaining ideas with you on how to get the most fun out of your party. If you’d like some basic New Year’s Entertaining Tips, check our my post from last year here: New Year’s Entertaining Tips from 2009

Let’s start with a theme. Are you just inviting people over, setting out some munchies and keeping it casual? Or do you want to add a bit of fun and organization by choosing a theme? Maybe you want a masked event with everyone removing their masks and revealing their identity at midnight. Maybe you are hosting a formal affair and would like everyone to dress up. Or maybe you are keeping it informal but would like everyone to come dressed in a particular color. Think about what it is you want to accomplish and go from there. Make it clear through your invitations what type of party it will be and what mode of dress is expected.

Use simple decorations. This is a great time to go all white or all cream. That way you can use just about anything you’ve got in the chosen color scheme and it won’t matter if individual pieces match or not. New Year’s is also a great time to add some sparkle and shine, so you could go for a white and silver or cream and gold party. White and blue are also a popular choice or if you want to be a real trendsetter, see if you can work in some purple or gray. A party that featured gray, cream and purple would be pretty spectacular!

You really can keep things simple while still having fun. Arrange noisemakers, beads, whatever party favors you want to pass out on trays or cake plates and use as centerpieces. That way the favors are close at hand while creating a fun touch to your party atmosphere.

For a really fun accent, make confetti out of copies of photographs. Make sure the photos include those who will be gathering in your home. Use a scrapbook paper punch or have the kids cut out confetti. Once I discovered the joys of bombarding my dad in confetti, I would spend hours on New Year’s Eve cutting up old papers into bits of confetti. It was not unheard of for us to have a gallon bucket of confetti that would be strategically hidden until the stroke of midnight when we would gang up on Dad and cover him in it. The only drawback was that someone had to spend an hour or so cleaning up all those tiny bits of paper the next morning and the job usually fell on the one who cut up the paper in the first place. So I would strongly advise using bigger pieces of confetti and having a designated clean up crew!

Keep food simple and easy to handle. Set a buffet of heavy appetizers and sweets. Have veggies, cheese and meat trays, crackers, sliced fruit, and a few warm appetizers. These taco cups are super easy to make and a real crowd-pleaser. Then have a few sweets like cookies or bite-sized portions that are easy for guests to eat. If children will be present, skip the booze and find some recipes for non-alcoholic drinks. Punch is festive and simple and serves a crowd. If it is chilly, make a big pot of mulled cider or have hot chocolate with all the trimmings available.

However you decide to entertain this weekend, please play it smart and be safe!

Happy New Year Entertaining!

Shanna

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Start A Holiday Idea Folder

Posted in Christmas, Entertaining at Home, Entertaining Ideas, Holidays, Success Tips, tagged , , on December 27, 2010| 1 Comment »

Well, if you are like me, you are in a state somewhere between joy over the wonderful Christmas celebrated Saturday and sadness that it is over for another year.

To get yourself over the post holiday doldrums, find a fun project to work on.

One that is perfect to start this week is a Holiday Idea folder. I like to use red file folders and hide them at the back of my filing cabinet. Believe me, no one ever looks in there!

Things you can put in your folder (or binder) include gift ideas, decorating ideas, recipes you’d like to try. Then add to the folder all year. If you are a hyper-organized kind of person, you might want to have several folders  or divided sections in your binder with titles like “Gifts,” “Decor,” “Recipes,” “Traditions.”

As you browse through magazines and catalogs, pull out the pages that capture your interest and add to your supply. If you are pulling out gift ideas, make sure you label them somehow or come October when you get out your files, you’ll have a bunch of pages and no idea what you intended to purchase for whom (not that I’ve ever done that before).

Now is the perfect time to get cracking on this project because the ideas are all fresh in your head. As you gathered with family and friends during the weekend, you probably had several ideas for “perfect gifts,” tasted a few recipes you’d like to add to your own collection for next year and thought of at least two fantastic decorating ideas or fun things that might make great future traditions.

Capture all that info now and you’ll be so glad you did!

Happy Holiday Entertaining!

Shanna

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Christmas Breakfast ideas

Posted in Breakfast, Christmas, Entertaining Ideas, Holiday Recipes, Holidays, tagged , , , on December 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Christmas morning the last thing you want to do is be tied down to the kitchen making breakfast. Plan ahead now and you can have a fabulous breakfast on the table with a minimal amount of effort!

So here are a few ideas…

Quick Breads

You can purchase these pre-made at stores like Costco (their apple or pumpkin bread is sooooo good), you can buy packaged mixes that are easy to whip together or make them from scratch. If you are planning to make them either from a mix of scratch, make these now so you don’t have to mess with them in the morning. If you want to be Betty Baker and go from scratch, here is a recipe for yummy banana bread.

Sweet Rolls

You can purchase pre-made sweet rolls or cinnamon rolls or whip together a batch. Just pop in the oven for a few minutes to warm and you’ve got a breakfast that everyone will enjoy. Here is a recipe for super easy cinnamon rolls that make my mouth water just thinking about them.

Casseroles

A breakfast casserole you can assemble the night before then pop in the oven to bake the next morning is ideal. They are warm and filling and will hopefully carry your starving crew through gift opening and morning festivities. Serve with a fresh fruit and it is a wonderful meal.

My favorite breakfast casserole involves ham and hashbrowns. It is so easy to make and so tasty good. Assemble the night before, set out for about 30 minutes and then bake.

Here is another recipe that is quite filling. You can use any type of meat you like, just make sure it is pre-cooked.

Ingredients

Beat eggs, then add milk and combine.

Dice up some ham (or crumble cooked bacon or sausage).

Add ham, breadcrumbs and salt to mixture.

Blend in some cheese.

Pour into greased pan, cover and refrigerate overnight.

Bake the next morning!

and enjoy!

Breakfast Bake

6 eggs

2 cups milk

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups diced cooked ham (or bacon or crumbled cooked sausage)

1 cup shredded colby jack cheese

3 cups croutons

Beat eggs and milk, add in remaining ingredients. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 inch casserole dish and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerate 8 hours or overnight. Remove from fridge and let set for about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 40 minutes or until eggs are set.

Enjoy!

Happy Holiday Entertaining and Merry Christmas!

Shanna

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Christmas Memories

Posted in Christmas, Entertaining at Home, Family, Holidays, Musings, tagged , on December 23, 2010| 2 Comments »

My sister, as a baby.

For many of us, the holiday season is much more than an opportunity to eat too much food, spend too much money and get presents (notice I did not say too many – can there be such a thing?).

The holidays are about the relationships we share with those we love. About the special feelings we keep in our hearts and the individual moments of innate sweetness that we want to remember forever.

The Christmas season always make me think of my sister. She was born with a brain tumor that continued to grow throughout her life. She also had epilepsy and never quite reached mental maturity. Five years ago, she passed away from head trauma resulting from one of her seizures.

She was 14 years old when I was born and really messed up the good thing she had going. She had been the baby of the family for all that time and liked things as they were. Along came this interloper who threw the world as she knew it into a tailspin. To say there was a bit of resentment on her part would be a mild understatement. Most of the time, I think my presence was a constant reminder that her position had been usurped.

But Christmas…Christmas, with its wonderful magical air would sweep over her with a beautiful blanket of peace and goodwill and things would be different. The desire to have fun, to be good because Santa was watching, took over.

My Dad and brothers with my sister - mid 1950s.

She would start making presents for everyone. Under different circumstances, I think she would have been a great artist. She liked to draw cartoons and did a bang up job with it. Her favorite character to draw was Snoopy. She also liked to do stitching. The last Christmas she was really with us, she stitched up two little pictures of dogs (another of her favorite things) and gave one to me and one to Hubby.

Although she wasn’t overly fond of the great outdoors, before Christmas she could be found outside attempting to build a snowman or plotting some way to bombard unsuspecting individuals with snowballs.

She would get involved with things she normally ignored the rest of the year, like baking and decorating. The decorating would nearly throw my Mom into a tailspin sometimes.

I don’t know where it came from but there was a music box – a little golden bird cage with a tiny bird inside that would tweet a holiday tune (which I can’t even remember now). She would dig through the decorations until she found it, the nostalgic aroma of bayberry wafting out of the storage box and filling the room with a scent that forevermore will bring a picture to mind of our family decking the halls, circa 1978. Once found, she would have that bird tweeting over and over until I thought my parents would throw it in a snowbank. As annoying as it was, it wasn’t Christmas until she got that music box out and played it a dozen times.

I’d like the opportunity, just once more, to watch her play that music box, to hear the bird tweet, to see the look of wonder and joy that filled her face each holiday season.

So my wish for you this holiday season is a wish that you cherish every precious moment with those you love and hold dear. Make some beautiful Christmas memories with them this year. Ones that take up a very special little corner in your heart.

With Christmas Love,

Shanna

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