You know your going to slave in the kitchen the whole week before Christmas preparing that special dinner for the family. Your going to spend hours chopping veggies, sifting flours, making graving and measuring out ingredients to plan for your candies, cakes and pies. But what about your best friends you really need to invite over (during this stressful week) for a holiday dinner?
How do you handle making 2 special dinners in the same week? Well the answer to that is... "You Don't." Christmas Dinners for friends don't have to be food fancy but for some reason we tell ourselves we have to serve casseroles with 100 ingredients and desserts with imported chocolates. LOL! It just doesn't have to be that way.
Every body's going to eat the fancy food stuff on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with their families. Don't stress the pallet out the week before by serving traditional food fair the whole week. By the time Christmas Eve rolls around, the very site of traditional Christmas Yule ham, green bean casserole and red velvet cakes are a turn off. Make it easy on yourself and serve a regular meal but with special touches.
The idea is that it feels like Christmas: Take a look at the photo above. This is a beautiful dinner for guests with none of the traditional holiday foods. That's right... "None." The meat is grilled pork steaks (pork chops) with a colorful fresh salad, and some wonderful red wine. The biggest thing you have to decide is which recipe your going to use for the homemade salad dressing. Yep! Choosing something simple like a homemade salad dressing or 2 should satisfy your inner self that keeps telling you "It must be made from scratch." giggle~ You know every one's going to ask you for the recipe! Just keep it simple. There is no guilt in 2 or 3 dishes. There's no reason to provide 10. The way to balance the table is with the special touches.
Special Touches: Pull out the Christmas dishes. If you don't have any don't stress about it. Just go with anything you have in the Christmas colors. That could be white, red, green, silver or gold. You can even mix all your colors on the same table. The idea is that it feels like Christmas. Add a small arrangement of Christmas flowers to the table to be festive. If you don't have room for that then do as the photo above. Add a bouquet of flowers to each plate. This will do nicely. A lit Christmas candle always gives the feeling of Christmas so go for it. The simplest things can make the biggest impressions.
Take a look at the tablecloth: Is it a Christmas table cloth? "No it's not!" It's a Spring tablecloth and I bet you didn't even notice it did you? You see it is possible to go with what you've got. It's all in the final presentation that counts. The flowers in the tablecloth matches the flowers on each plate. Being that both have red flowers in them; makes it perfect with the red candle. You see even a flower theme can look like Christmas.
Christmas Dinners don't have to be food fancy: Enjoy your time with your friends. Serve a simple to prepare meal with simple decorations and feel good about it. The idea is that it feels like Christmas. Play some light Christmas music in the background and "IT WILL BE BEAUTIFUL."
Fun Facts for Christmas Eve! Did you know the Christmas Eve supper is usually held in candle light, in the evening after the first star appears in the sky?? The star sympolizes the birth of Jesus in Christian tradition. And did you know some people take their Christmas Eve meal outside under the stars?? Wink~
-Merry Christmas, Pam-
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| dreamstime/steak-rimage |
Every body's going to eat the fancy food stuff on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with their families. Don't stress the pallet out the week before by serving traditional food fair the whole week. By the time Christmas Eve rolls around, the very site of traditional Christmas Yule ham, green bean casserole and red velvet cakes are a turn off. Make it easy on yourself and serve a regular meal but with special touches.
The idea is that it feels like Christmas: Take a look at the photo above. This is a beautiful dinner for guests with none of the traditional holiday foods. That's right... "None." The meat is grilled pork steaks (pork chops) with a colorful fresh salad, and some wonderful red wine. The biggest thing you have to decide is which recipe your going to use for the homemade salad dressing. Yep! Choosing something simple like a homemade salad dressing or 2 should satisfy your inner self that keeps telling you "It must be made from scratch." giggle~ You know every one's going to ask you for the recipe! Just keep it simple. There is no guilt in 2 or 3 dishes. There's no reason to provide 10. The way to balance the table is with the special touches.
Special Touches: Pull out the Christmas dishes. If you don't have any don't stress about it. Just go with anything you have in the Christmas colors. That could be white, red, green, silver or gold. You can even mix all your colors on the same table. The idea is that it feels like Christmas. Add a small arrangement of Christmas flowers to the table to be festive. If you don't have room for that then do as the photo above. Add a bouquet of flowers to each plate. This will do nicely. A lit Christmas candle always gives the feeling of Christmas so go for it. The simplest things can make the biggest impressions.
Take a look at the tablecloth: Is it a Christmas table cloth? "No it's not!" It's a Spring tablecloth and I bet you didn't even notice it did you? You see it is possible to go with what you've got. It's all in the final presentation that counts. The flowers in the tablecloth matches the flowers on each plate. Being that both have red flowers in them; makes it perfect with the red candle. You see even a flower theme can look like Christmas.
Christmas Dinners don't have to be food fancy: Enjoy your time with your friends. Serve a simple to prepare meal with simple decorations and feel good about it. The idea is that it feels like Christmas. Play some light Christmas music in the background and "IT WILL BE BEAUTIFUL."
Fun Facts for Christmas Eve! Did you know the Christmas Eve supper is usually held in candle light, in the evening after the first star appears in the sky?? The star sympolizes the birth of Jesus in Christian tradition. And did you know some people take their Christmas Eve meal outside under the stars?? Wink~
-Merry Christmas, Pam-
2 comments:
Great Tips and I love your blog.
Thank you for sharing, this information is useful to me,good quality.
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