A Friendsgiving Cocktail Party
I love spending time with family during the holidays and I am fortunate that both mine and my husbands families all live close by. Many people live far from their families and sometimes spend holidays with friends, hence celebrating a "Friendsgiving." Although I am celebrating Thanksgiving with my family, I still thought it would be fun to get together and celebrate with friends.
Instead of having a full blown traditional Thanksgiving meal, I decided to make it a smaller, more intimate cocktail party and have all of the food be appetizers inspired by the main dishes of a traditional Thanksgiving meal. I also decided to serve one, non-pie dessert, and three "flavors of fall" cocktails.
For all of you locals, I went to Stew Leonard's in Newington (CT) for my groceries. I love the shopping experience there, it is so much fun for my kids, the produce and meat are THE BEST, and nothing beats their customer service. Since I am such a dedicated customer, and they wanted to support my blog ,they even donated some groceries for the recipes I presented in the segment I did on WTNH News 8! Thanks Stew's!!!
Now onto the menu!
As I mentioned I wanted each appetizer to be a take on a traditional Thanksgiving dish (click on each for recipe).
1. Turkey, Brie and Cranberry Eggrolls with a Dijon Cranberry Dipping Sauce
5. Sweet Potato Rounds with Goat Cheese, Candied Pecans, Craisins and Honey Drizzle (note I did not add the orange infused olive oil like the recipe called for or the balsamic, I just drizzled honey over the top with a little orange zest)
Dessert:
For my decor I wanted to keep it simple, classy and rustic. I of course had my friend Angela from Just A Spoonful of Sparkle make a custom "Friendsgiving" Banner, and food labels. For the food labels, I just hot glued them to wooden shish kabob skewers, and then stuck them into mini pumpkins. The drink labels were standard, yet absolutely adorable food tent labels. (See below for GIVEAWAY details!!!)
The table I lined with black craft paper, a burlap runner and some cute fabric doilies.
I scored big on some late fall clearance items at Michael's. I purchased the doilies, the copper colored leave stems, and turkey candle stick holders.
For my serve ware I wanted to stick with all white and copper. The cake pedestals, martini glasses, and small copper serving bowl I found at HomeGoods. The small copper tray I found at Target. The Moscow Mule mugs we borrowed from a friend; they are super great quality and on my wish list to Santa, wink wink. All of the white platters I have had for a while.
Hosting a "Friendsgiving" was such a pleasure. With all of the Christmas decor already on full display and creeping into our homes, I did not want to rush or take away from the Thanksgiving holiday. Whether at Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving I feel so thankful and blessed to be able to share such great and memorable times with my friends and family.
The boys having a little impromptu bourbon tasting.
Cheers to you all, and all of the loved ones you spend your holidays with!
xo,
Nicole
AND...there's a GIVEAWAY!!
To enter to win the "Friendsgiving" Banner and Food labels, that were used in this post, as well as a gift card to use towards any order from Just A Spoonful of Sparkle do the following:
1. Please fill out the subscribe box (located on TheGreenRobe.com home page) to receive email updates from The Green Robe.
2. Follow @TheGreenRobe on Instagram , and "like" my Friendsgiving post.
3. Like my page, The Green Robe (Nicole Charles) on Facebook.
You MUST do number 1 to be entered. If you do 2 and 3 you will receive two more entries and have a better chance of winning!!!
A winner will be selected at random and be announced by Monday, November 21, 2016.
(Per Instagram rules, we must mention that this is in no way sponsored or administered or associated with Instagram, Inc. by entering, entrants confirm they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility and agree to Instagram's terms. We cannot ship this prize outside of the continental USA. This is not a sponsored giveaway.)
Good luck!
Photography by tomnaclerio.com
