Gingerbread House Party and Happy Holidays!

Seeing as this is in fact a Blog About Food, I figured it would be only appropriate to post my gingerbread house party. This is the second one I've done in a row, and I'm really hoping it becomes an annual thing, it's so much fun, especially since the entire thing is involving food!

About a month before the party I make the gingerbread houses, which are the same houses my mom has been making for us our entire lives. They are small and simple, but made out of real gingerbread and are so cute. I freeze them, and then the day before the party, I assemble them with hot glue. It's probably not the most traditional way to assemble them, but it's non-toxic, peels right off, and ensures the fewest broken down houses. I also provided the frosting and piping bags, and then everyone brings a different candy to decorate with.


And here you have the fabulous people that came! You'll notice there are no kids, I think adults should be able to have some good, old fashioned Christmas fun too, don't you! I love these girls. Lots of laughing, eating, and staying up way too late, so fun!

And on to the food.

In the crockpot are Li'l Smokies, dressed in a very complicated sauce of ketchup and mustard. Sounds a bit too simple, but trust me, it's fantastic, and everyone is surprised when they find out that's all it is. There was also a veggie tray with a side of ranch dip (gotta keep the veggies around during the holidays!)

Alissa, from Spunky Girl Eats, brought her fabulous stuffed mushrooms, which disappeared SO quickly. Oh my gosh these were good!

I made Melanie, from My Kitchen Cafe's fantastic cheesecake cookies, bejeweled in a strawberry and blueberry pie filling, how pretty are these, great cookies Melanie!

And of course I had to make cakeballs. I made dark chocolate and mint chocolate cake balls, both made with chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. The mint cakeballs are coated in a mint-chocolate shell using the Wilton candy chips. They were good, but not quite minty enough for me, next time I'm going to put some chopped Andes mints right into the cakeballs.

We had other people bring fantastic treats too, but unfortunately I didn't get pictures of it all. Suffice it to say, there was plenty of food to go around!

I'm so happy with the way things turned out, and I'm already looking forward to doing it again next year. Thank you so much girls for making it a fun night!

And now we're getting ready to board a plane tomorrow to Idaho to spend two blissful weeks with my favorite people in the world. Because of that, I'm probably going to be signing off for the year 2009, it's been a great year hasn't it! So a toast!



My family does an eggnog toast every Christmas Eve, but inevitably they get really silly and by the end of the toast we're all in stitches. Since eggnog is so rich, I can't drink a lot of it, but my friend suggested thinning it out with a bit of Sprite or 7up. It might sound a bit crazy, but it's really delicious and cuts the thickness without losing a lot of flavor. I also love that it's bubbly! So here's to a wonderful holiday and a promising new year! Thank you everyone for all of your support and willingness to read throughout the months, it has made food blogging so very enjoyable. I'll see you all in 2010!
Cheers!