2018 Wine Club Christmas

Christmas season is in full swing and our dance cards have been packed with parties and get-togethers. I again had the chance to host Wine Club Christmas last week and we had a lovely time! Here are some snapshots from the night, along with some recipe links to the delicious treats we ate.

I set the table with a red striped runner and these very, very cute scalloped-edge napkins from Target. Wherever I go, red, white and blue always seem to pop up.

I love any excuse to bust out all the blue and white china I've collected over the past few years, and show off my handmade mug collection. Using storebought puff pastry, I made two types of breadsticks (both delicious!) based on this Martha Stewart recipe. It was so easy peasy! One batch was parmesan and cayenne pepper, while the other was Everything seasoned.

I welcomed our guests with some good old-fashioned Glogg (that has to be one of the most fun words to say out loud) — wine mulled with spices and served warm.

I did some prep but Sean did the heavy lifting, so here's a great shot of me wearing my mom's apron while Sean does all the work.

My favorite Pinterest-sourced idea: a Christmas tree veggie tray! I used a cookie cutter to trim slices of cheddar into stars and then laid some pretzel sticks to form a trunk.

I also served my very first hard-but-worth-it sugar cookies with royal icing (these deserve a whole separate post). I used this Tasty recipe for the cookies and bought royal icing mix, just to make the whole process a little easier for a newbie. I may have lost my mind and made custom icing colors matched to my gift wrapping scheme because...well, I'm a little bit extra.

I completely forgot to take a picture of the piece de resistance, so here's an old screengrab from an Insta Story: Sean's extra delicious Bucatini Amatriciana with crispy prosciutto. He's made it twice now and it is a bonafide HIT and everyone in Wine Club loved it.

And as if all that wasn't enough, I also tested my baking skill and made this hot cocoa cheesecake, which required a water bath that — of course — seeped a little bit in at the bottom and maybe made my crust too soft. You can't win 'em all, but the cheesecake itself (topped with a layer of ganache) was perfect.

It was a wonderful night of fellowship with my best gals to close out our NINTH year. Obviously we have to make 2019 a truly baller year befitting our decade of monthly get-togethers!