Party's Here! {To be said like Snooki}

I'll preface this post by saying that I don't watch Jersey Shore, but the title seemed appropriate. This title's for you Julie...my Waste of Brain Cells Jersey Shore loving friend.

We had our annual Christmas party on Friday night. It was so much fun! 

I love that each year gets better and better.

Julie came over to be my assistant in the kitchen and Chase was home this year too, so we made quite the team. You know I love my lists, so I had made a schedule of what needed to be prepped / cooked and when it needed to happen. We followed it and the whole day went flawlessly.

We answered each other by saying "Yes Chef!" like they do on those cooking competition shows. Chase would occasionally bark orders at us just so it felt real. 

There was also a moment where Chase crushed some peppermints with a hammer to the beat of "I Like Big Butts" which was playing in the background. (Yes we were listening to 90's music! I love the 90's channel on Dish!)

Anyway, I wanted to share the party menu in case anyone is looking for last minute ideas for your parties this weekend.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Pepperoni & Cheeses Tray

Bruschetta

Cheese Truffles

Puppy Chow

Ham Delights

Ham & Swiss Rollups

Pigs in a Blanket

Chips & Dip

Cocktail Meatballs

Peanut Butter Cream Cups

Veggie Tree

The moral of this menu story is that Kraft Recipes and Pillsbury definitely saved the day. They're easy and quick. What more needs to be said?

We covered the counter with white Christmas lights and Chase made 'levels' with various boxes we had laying around. We covered the whole thing with light green satin fabric. It looked so good with the lights on!

I have some notes to share on the tree construction.
But first, here she is in all her glory:

I'm quite proud of my carrot starburst topper. And I promise the carrots didn't look bad like that in person. 

We used packing tape (because it's all we had on hand) to secure the cone to the cake stand. We tried the hot glue, but it didn't stick.

We didn't cut our cone down, so it was pretty tall. We also covered the entire cone with broccoli because our tree was in the middle of the food display.

This was honestly a very easy project and I'll definitely do it again. Our only mess up was not getting enough broccoli the first time around. We had to send Chase out on an emergency broccoli mission. (We used 8 heads total.)

Just make sure when you're picking out the broccoli heads that you look to see if the stalks are long or if they split into smaller stalks. (Stalks? Is that the right word? Don't judge me if it's not, ok?) You definitely want long stalks so that the toothpicks will be able to stick in it far enough and you'll have enough left over to stick into the cone.

The hardest part was definitely convincing people that it was made to be eaten.


Let me know if you have any questions about any of the recipes. I got good reviews from the crowd, so any of these would work great for your family gatherings this weekend!