Let’s move on to the main event, shall we?

This is where things get fuzzy.  This table WAS just for the main parts of the meal – entrees and side dishes.  As my dining room table has grown in size over the years (hmmmm, so has my waist size – coincidence?), it seems I add more stuff to this table that maybe should be elsewhere?

Anyway, what ended up on this table was the spinach dip – which was gone entirely.  The vegetable crudite, made only with veggies I and my girls will/can eat, so when I have leftovers, it’s not leftovers of stuff I end up throwing away.  We went through nearly the whole tray.  Then we had a pickle (dill spears and sweet gherkins) and olive (black and green) tray – with marinated mushrooms, mostly because I had an extra space in my dish.  I had nearly the whole tray left.  Apparently, this was not an olive year.

We had at the other end of the table my baked ham, served cold.  I had a bunch of that left, but ham doesn’t do well in the chafing dish for the length of time the party was.  I might have to work on that.  In the front right is the grape pizza – which was almost entirely gone.  In the crock pot was my roast turkey, which was a big hit – and that was a surprise.  Aren’t people still eating turkey soup, turkey sandwiches, and turkey croquettes from Thanksgiving?  I put the cranberry sauce next to it in case people wanted to make a whole Thanksgiving meal/sandwich kind of thing.  I had half of the cranberry sauce left.  Next year – awesomesauce (this is an homage to my “brother” on the Moms Panel, Jonas, and I have no idea what one would even make awesomesauce out of – perhaps Damn Good Dip?).

The gorgeous looking “wreath” is a broccoli/ham/cheese ring, made with a recipe from my friend Amy.  Amy has elevated herself to Best Friend For Life with this recipe!  Almost as soon as I put the ring on the table, it was entirely gone.  I’m sorry I didn’t make the whole table just these rings – it got RAVE reviews.  No awesomesauce or damn good name necessary.

Meatballs, Sausage, Bruschetta – oh my!  The bruschetta is nestled safely back in my fridge, as it was the lone “not touched” item on the table.  The second crock pot has meatballs and sausage in it, and I had only a container left.  Even the Italians commented on how good they were (thank you, Ragu, which may very well be the original awesomesauce).  The chafing dishes contained stuffing – my stepmom’s recipe- which also won critical acclaim; and kielbasa.  One pan of kielbasa was entirely eaten, but the second pan was too dry and untouched.  I also think we got better kielbasa at the Polish deli, but to save time, I bought it at Wegman’s deli.  Next year, we’re back at the Polish deli (yeah, I keep saying next year after I swore never again).

Then we had desserts.  I inevitably forget SOMETHING on the table.  This year, it was the dip for the fruit salad.  I had a mini-meltdown over desserts.  I ordered a case of cranberry bliss bars from Starbucks, along with peppermint brownies, and my bliss bars were accidentally dispensed to Starbucks patrons with obviously discriminating palates.  I was pissed.  Almost pissed enough to never set foot in Starbucks again.  I ended up replacing it with a red velvet roll (no one touched it, as pretty as I thought it was), cupcakes, panettone, petit fours, and blueberry cake (they were hard to replace).  I had desserts of all kinds left, especially since people brought more desserts in.  I don’t have a photo of the beautiful carrot cake my Aunt Barbara made, but I heard it was delicious!

What kind of desserts do people like at these things?  Clue me in.

Another year, another party.  I made some old, familiar mistakes this year – plus a bunch of new ones!  But I think overall, our crowd of around 60 people seemed to enjoy themselves.  No one was any wiser for the things I forgot or ran out of time to do.  As usual, we have our list of must do’s and don’t do’s, and I’ll share the list with you. 

To begin with, I just felt really behind the entire weekend.  We planned the party for Sunday, figuring Jim would be home Friday and Saturday to help me get stuff done.  We also spent a week the week before the party in Orlando, so I had a mountain of stuff to catch up anyway. 

By the morning of the party, I had done a lot of the leg work.  We were not having ANYTHING catered, which we usually do.  I had roasted two turkeys, and I had made potato salad.  I cooked the sausage and fried the kielbasa.  I made spinach dip and hoagie dip.  I store bought roast beef, and needed to simmer that in gravy, and simmer the sliced turkey in gravy to put it on the buffet.  I had SOOOOO much trouble with my hard boiled eggs that my 3 dozen deviled eggs turned into just over a dozen.  Brighid – bless her to the bottom of her little heart – had done A LOT of the actual housework – wiping down the bathrooms, running the vacuum, etc.   To complicate matters, the party was scheduled for 2 o’clock, and at 12:45, I ran upstairs to get a fast shower.  By the time I was out of the shower, we already had company!

So here’s the basic lowdown on how things went, what I did wrong, what we did right…

Table 1 – Drinks

We said a couple of years ago that we needed to add another long table and put it in the Florida room with drinks on it.  That would free up the kitchen counter for things and eliminate the need to manuever around the dessert table in the kitchen to get a drink.  Well, this year, we asked my mom to bring her table, and it worked out GREAT.  The sodas, the ice, the liquor, the wine – everything was out in the Florida room on the table out there.  We had two tubs with sodas and beer in them, and we had way too much wine.  We also had a pretty stocked bar and mixers, so anything anyone wanted was there.  We need to get ourselves a table and make this change permanent.

Table 2 – Chafing Dishes and hot foods

We made the decision this year to try to keep everything in chafing dishes, to avoid things like the crockpots being too far on the back of the table for people to reach or what to do with the lids to the crockpots.  In the end, though, I put the meatballs and sausage in a crockpot.  They just taste better cooked together, and the crockpot does a great job helping  the flavors blend together.  The other crockpots had hot roast turkey and gravy, hot roast beef and gravy, green bean casserole (Megan’s recipe), broccoli casserole, and kielbasa and sauerkraut.  At the end of the night, there was virtually NO kielbasa and sauerkraut left – the few odd pieces of kielbasa.  We had some turkey left, more than I thought we would have, and based on the fact that my aunt with a ton of kids cancelled last minute due to pink eye, I figured we’d have stuff left over.  I had made two trays of roast beef, figuring it would be popular and I could easily freeze the leftovers, but I had a full tray left.  About half of the green bean casserole was eaten and 1/4 of the broccoli casserole.  They looked similar in the chafing dishes, so people may have thought they were the same thing, and I don’t know if it’s worth doing veggies at this type of party.  And of course, the meatballs and sausage – most of which was eaten.

Also on this table was potato salad.  I made 10 pounds, and we went through about 6 at the party.  My mom liked it, and since it’s her recipe, that’s all the compliment it needed. 

Table 3 – Snack Type Foods

This table was the biggest disappointment.  I threw away a ton of hoagie dip and spinach dip – both of which have been very popular in previous years.  I got rid of all of the deviled eggs, but I only made a dozen eggs, but only about 16 deviled eggs made it out to the table.  I threw away pretty much the whole cheese tray – I think only Granuaile and I ate anything from the cheese platter.  The pickles and olives were picked on, but I did still have quite a few left over.  The pickles I thought would be least popular – and the ones I threw on at the last minute because I had a spot left over in the divided tray – were the dill spears.  I only had 1 of those left.  I also threw away a whole tray of crackers.  I don’t know why more of this stuff didn’t get eaten.  I know early on, a lot of people were watching football downstairs, and the chips and dip tray was emptied, but no one really came up to get other snacks.

The one exception in popularity from this table was the shrimp.  I made 6 pounds of shrimp and cocktail sauce, and had not one shrimp left. 

Table 4 – Desserts

Would you believe I forgot to put out the bulk of the desserts?  How does anyone forget dessert?  I baked a pumpkin pie, a coconut custard pie, and an apple pie – all Mrs. Smith.  I sliced them and put them out, but they were a last minute addition.  I made a cupcake wreath, but the only one who ate a cupcake was Eilis.  We bought cookies from Wegman’s and made our own cookie tray – people really ate the cookies, but we over bought and had a whole tray left over.  Aunt Barbara and Uncle Buddy brought a 5 fruit pie, and it looked amazing.  Harry and his wife were the only ones who tried it, but both loved it, and then my mom and Bob had it on Christmas Eve and said it was really good.  I also made fruit salad, two bowls.  One was eaten, the other was not, and the dip was gone.  But I had cheesecake, eclairs and cream puffs in the freezer that never made it to the table.  I can’t believe I forgot them!

The other things I forgot – the provolone cheese for the meatball sandwiches; the horseradish for the roast beef; the cranberry sauce for the turkey; and the spicy mustard for the kielbasa.  Evidently, I’m just not good with condiments and accompaniments.

We still had people at the house until after 10 o’clock, and the kids really seemed to have a great time.  I will NEVER do this party this close to Christmas again – it was way too much to get ready so close to having to get all of the Christmas stuff ready.  I also needed more time between the party and the trip to Florida.  Either that, or I need to prepare more ahead of time and freeze it or call in the caterer.

We managed to get everything cleaned up and ourselves in bed by 1 AM – better than I thought we would do! 

Overall, it was a great day.  Jim says every year that this is really for the kids, and they appreciated it.  Granuaile was asking to go to bed when the last guest left, and Eilis was asking for playdates with all of the kids that came.  They had a good time.

Next year – earlier, catered, and with strings tied to my fingers to remember the provolone cheese and other accompaniments!