The Happy Little Farmhouse: A little planning goes a long way!

Whoa.... it's been far too long since my last post and I apologize! I actually wrote this post on Christmas Eve but never got around to publishing it. Woopsie!

Close your eyes... imagine it's Christmas Eve. OK? Now you may read:

This year will be the very first time I've ever spent Christmas anywhere but my parents house, and that is because for the very first time I will be hosting it at my house! Exciting? Yes! Scary? Yes!

Both my parents and their spouses, Nathan's parents, and two of his three sisters (and possibly their boyfriends) will be joining! So instead of driving to three different places on Christmas day, we get to enjoy it in our own home with the company of our wonderful families. This will be my first attempt at a large holiday meal, and as though that wasn't enough to make me a bit nervous, we're also having 10-15 friends over that night for a party. Me=nervous, but excited! Having trouble picturing this? This may help:

When it comes to this sort of thing I'm very very anal. I'm not a "fly by the seat of my pants" kinda girl. For the last few weeks I've been thinking and brainstorming ideas for the day. I've got an entire board dedicated to the "Christmas Party" on Pinterest. I've done my homework. This week I decided it was time to really start focusing. I went online and found some AWESOME tools to help me:

I found a free printable Holiday Menu Planner here. It gives a column for each part of the meal, where you found the recipe and who you have delegated this too. I've been told in many different situations that I am not great at delegating, so most of these things say: Delegated to Me :). Then I found a super awesome Christmas Dinner Checklist from Target. THEN... (yes i'm seriously still going with this) I typed up a quick excel spreadsheet check off list specific to the foods I'm making and what I still have to do. Here it is:

Remember when I said I'm anal? You believe me now, don't you? Just to add a cheery on top of the obsessive compulsiveness that is my Christmas Dinner planning, I spent about 2 hours making my shopping list Friday morning. I made sure I had all the recipes I was using (either on hand or found them from my Christmas Party Pinterest board), sat on the couch with my freshly brewed Green Mountain Coffee and got started. First, I made a rough list of what I needed for each recipe. This, as you could imagine, was seriously unorganized and if I would have taken that first list to the store I would have probably done about 300 laps before I was finished. Instead, I separated my list into each section of the store moving from left to right: produce, meat, "middle," frozen, baking, dairy, Wine and lastly the Liquor outlet in the grocery store. I only backtracked in the store once or twice and felt like a pro! **I also actually remembered my reusable bags this time. I felt seriously accomplished, but seriously exhausted.

Yay Groceries!

This post has seemed to go on forever, so I'll cut to the chase and "share" the menu with you now. I'll post details and pictures after Christmas on everything I made!!

Apps: Cocktail hot dogs(Mom), celery with cream cheese and olive spread, caramel nut Brie, goat cheese/sun-dried tomato/pesto Torta (still not quite sure what Torta is, but it's basically a dip or spread for bread or crackers) and other various cheese and crackers.
Soup: Butternut and Apple Bisque
Salad: Tossed
Entree: Traditional Glazed Ham
Side: Garlic Mashed Potatos
Side: Coleslaw (Nathan's Mom)
Veggies: Corn, and roasted broccoli and Brussels sprouts
Bread: Rolls (Pauline)
Dessert: Sugar Cookies, Lemon Squares, something delicious from Pauline and Peanut Butter filled Chocolate Cake from Nathan's Mom.

OK! Open your eyes! We are back in the future! Here are some photos of how the day turned out!! It went as close to perfect as it possibly could have.