slumber party goodness; or how to throw a holiday party

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the ladies came, we watched, we ate, we drank, we brunched, and everyone returned home rested and ready to start the holiday season. Yes, the grown up slumber party was a success. The best part: we piled everything on my coffee table and sat around without worrying about watching movies from the kitchen table.

At my parties, and I think most parties, there is some activity that draws everyone together. If there isn't, then everyone congregates in the kitchen. It does help that my little house is one open room, with furniture suggesting the purpose for each area. I've an entry filled with bookcases and a place for coats & hats, a little area blocked off by my desk and more bookshelves that suggests an office or study, a bar complete with bar stools and all my glasses, my kitchen/dining table, the actual kitchen, and my seating wrapped around the television but able to interact with anyone anywhere else in the place. Only my bedroom is properly in another room with a door. When it's just me, it is so much easier to leave everything open and as spacious as possible.

If you were having a proper cocktail party, with people mingling around the house or a buffet table, you could just as easily spread food and drink out with prettier results. I wanted a place where no one had to get up and miss a second of our favorite holiday movies.

 We had nugget versions of my Southern-style Skillet Fried Chicken, a plate full of grape tomatoes, baby carrots, and Bell peppers & hummus {who doesn't want something of a rounded plate at a holiday party?}, toasted slices of Crusty Bread, with what should have been Garlic & Lemon Ricotta spread {instead, I ran to Aldi's and picked up flavored goat cheeses: garlic & herb and cranberry & cinnamon}, and some black lentil curry for chicken and bread dipping. Later when things got a bit sweeter, we moved on to pusties {an Italian-American dessert of  chocolate cinnamon custard baked in a crust} from a family recipe of a dear friend and some chocolate booted Gingerbread men. We might even had eaten Eggnog Sugar Cookies, but my family had already gobbled them all up.

We drank sparkling pinot grigio and Dirty Shirleys, eggnog with and without Bailey's and ogled Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, and Jude Law. We came to the general consensus that Jack Black is not hot enough for Kate Winslet, and Mark Darcy, reindeer jumper or no, impossibly long sideburns and all, knows just what to say to melt a woman's heart {"I like you. Just as you are."}

May your holidays be filled with as much brightness and cheer as settled in my home Saturday night.

"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor

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