mango muses: 2nd bi-annual christmas party

Alex and I have bi-annual Christmas parties. Originally I thought maybe we'll start doing them annually after this year (last year was a disaster to begin with and the party got semi-hijacked to a different location, on a different date, with a different concept called pot-luck). However, after the past week - see you all in 2010 peeps!!

I had a project plan for tasks to do every day of the week leading up to the party, as I believe firmly that if I'm opening the doors, I'd better treat my guests right and there's never too much enthusiasm. The plans actually got put into motion in October when I ordered custom invitations from redstamp.com. I'm obsessed with custom letterpress and stationery shops these days so I jumped on the opportunity to get these invitations made. Two years ago I sourced shimmery champagne-coloured card stock and embossed the invitations myself, which took a long time, and gave me a hand cramp!

Anyway, this week has been full of baking, prepping, cooking, shopping at various specialty stores, procuring cheap(er) amaryllis, etc. I followed the rule of 6-7 pieces of food per guest for the hors d'oeuvres, and since we invited at least 30 people, you can imagine the sheer volume of food passing through the kitchen this week. I would basically be in the kitchen from the moment I got home until about midnight!!

The final menu included crab cakes, duck crepes, curry chicken purses, brie and cranberry spanakopita, veggies and chips with pan-fried onion dip, lamb bites with roasted red peppers, 4 mushroom tarts with truffles, cherry tomatoes stuffed with pesto on a skewer with bocconcini, smoked salmon with creme fraiche, and prosciutto with dijon mustard. The desserts table included chocolate cups filled with fresh fruit, shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate, mini coconut cupcakes, chocolate chip skor bits cookies from allison, and gingerbread cookies!!

The party started at 7:30 (Terence and gang arrived about 30 minutes earlier to help with last minute preparations as I was super stressed out and considered not doing my hair or makeup just to make sure everything was ready), and went on until 3:00am!!!!! It was a smashing success and I think we had about 24 people show up despite the snow storm that hit last minute, and one of my guests had to be picked up with a garbage bag in hand, so I think we did very well! We polished off 18.5 bottles of alcohol...although if everyone had read the instructions on the invite and brought a bottle of champagne, we would've gone through more I should think!!