Christmas Soiree

Hi Everyone!

     Yesterday I had my first get together at my new home. Only a fraction of those who I invited came and it was still a full house!
     My favorite part about this party (besides lots of food, family and good friends) was that this was the very first time this house has truly been picked up and cleaned! Things are still finding their place in the home and there have still been boxes in corners, etc. It looked and felt great to have things completed.
     I had prepared for kids with some kids crafts, which the kids never even touched. Because the cookies that I had set out for the kids to frost was such a hit!

Pre-cut Tollhouse sugar cookie shapes + canned frosting + food coloring + colored sprinkles = fun for the kids and the most incredible collective sugar rush I have ever seen!

      You wouldn't believe the chaos that happened soon after this idyllic photo was taken. Imagine 4 girls, aged 7 to 12, 2 boys aged 16 and 17 and a 24 year old girl-for-a-day racing racing full speed through the house, through the back yard, back through the house to the front yard and all around again. This made for a bunch of entertained adults and a happy party hostess! I hope they all slept well after the collective crash-and-burn.

     It was an hors d'oeuvres party with a few different cheeses, shrimp dip (cream cheese, Heinz Chili Sauce poured over and topped with salad shrimp), crackers, little wieners in barbecue sauce in the crock pot and this recipe, which I heated in another slow cooker:

Sweet and Oh So Spicy Kielbasa

2 16oz packages kielbasa sausage, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 16oz bottle barbecue sauce

1/4 cup grape jelly

1 15oz can pineapple chunks, drained

1 4oz jar maraschino cherries

1 Tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 dashes cayenne pepper hot sauce

I put everything into the crockpot and heated. If you follow the link in the recipe title, it will give cooking instructions that don't involve a crockpot.

      Be sure to warn your friends that there are maraschino cherries in it, more than one person was a little creeped out when they bit into a cherry, expecting a piece of meat.