If your Christmas dinner party is formal, you’ll want to learn how to properly set a formal table setting for your guests. It can be complicated, with all of those glasses, plates, and utensils, but it’s easy to learn. If you need pointers, this video featuring professional chef Cat Cora from Cooking.com can help you set your table beautifully and clear it efficiently.
If you find yourself hosting a lot of company throughout the holidays, freezer cooking could be your friend. Pre-assembling and freezing some favorite casseroles, soups, stews, and other dishes can save you a lot of time, so you’re never caught without something to cook, even if company just shows up at the door. For some suggestions how to get started with freezer cooking, check out Part One and Part Two of the Christmas Goodies blog’s series on freezer cooking.
We’re all pretty familiar with all of the stresses that can come along with the Christmas season. After all, who hasn’t been out shopping at 9 pm on December 23rd looking for that perfect gift for a relative you only see once a year? Our friends at the ChristmasStress.info blog have found a great online resource for helping you keep all of the craziness of the Christmas season under control.
When you’re decorating your home for your Christmas dinner party, you might be tempted to buy a lot of new decorations. But have you given thought to how you can use what you already have to make your home just as beautiful and trendy as it would be if you bought every new thing you see in the store? The Christmas Places blog offers some suggestions for decorating your home on a budget and keeping spending under control.
A Christmas party just wouldn’t be complete without cookies, would it? If you love oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip cookies, you can combine the two with this yummy-sounding Cowboy Cookies recipe from Christmas Goodies.
If your dinner party attendees are a fun-loving bunch who would get a kick out of a little role-playing, why not try out an interactive murder mystery game at your dinner party? Merry Mysteries sells a Christmas-themed murder mystery game called “Who Killed Santa,” that can be adapted for anywhere from 8 guests to 100 guests. If you have children attending the party, you probably won’t want to play this game, or any other murder mystery game, as it would be too frightening for the children. For an adults only party, though, this role-playing game is a great way to spend an evening. It’s also a good icebreaker if many of your guests don’t know each other.
If you have a lot of dishes, glassware, and silverware to choose from, you might be wondering how to select which one is the most appropriate for your Christmas dinner party. Catering expert Stephanie Barnett has some excellent recommendations on making your selection in this video:
If everyone attending your dinner party has a good sense of humor, a gag gift exchange could be a fun element to add to the festivities. Check out JokeGifts.org for some suggestions on planning this fun gift exchange, where everyone is sure to open up something funny or embarrassing. They also have links to some very creative homemade gag gifts that would make nearly anyone chuckle.
If you fill up stockings for your Christmas festivities, you might be looking to save a little money on all of those goodies this year. Our friends from the Christmas Stocking Stuffers blog have put together a list of suggestions that might help you spend a little less on stocking stuffers while still making the recipients happy. You could even draw names for stockings so each person is only responsible for one stocking. Check out their blog for a ton of great ideas to save some cash.
Are you going to try to “go green” with your Christmas party this year? Have you thought about your Christmas tree? If you typically buy an artificial Christmas tree, you might think of it as greener because it’s natural and biodegradable, even if it does involve cutting down a tree. It’s also important to consider that those trees are grown specifically for the purpose of being cut down as Christmas trees. But how much fuel is consumed transporting the tree from farm to retailer, then to the consumer’s home? How does it impact the environment to have a constant turnover of trees being grown and cut down on the same land?
On the other side, you have the artificial Christmas tree, which takes a lot of fossil fuel to produce as well as transport. However, you can use the same tree for several years and then recycle it when you’re done, and you are also not removing a natural tree from the environment.
So which is greener? Our friends at the Christmas Tree Decorating blog are considering that issue this week and would love your input.