Holiday Suppers

Every year, my grandparents throw two themed Christmas Dinner Parties. One for my grandfather’s family, and one for my grandmother’s. For the past few years, me and my cousins have been allowed to join in, helping our mothers prepare everything, serve on the night of, and clean up afterwards. We are also supplied with costumes, which is why I have posted pictures of us in Scottish outfits, as well as dressed as Disney princesses. 

This year, we decided to do an Irish Pub Theme. And while everyone will tell you I have absolutely no decorating skills, for some reason, I ended up doing a lot more than ever before.

 For example, we went to an Irish pub a while ago, and my mom thought their old time newspaper was so cool that we had our own made, then I taped them together, with a sheet of plastic above and below, to make our tablecloth.

We even wrote our own headlines for the menu, trying our best to sound like a real newspaper while also being completely ridiculous:

We also decided it would be cool to have pub signs hanging all around, so we scoured the internet, and then I made signs for some of our favorite ones. There’s a collection of Irish proverbs, actual pub signs, and a facebook gif for good measure 😉

We always have a gift, and this year we made it more personal. My grandfather ordered a bunch of glasses and aprons, all with Wyngaert’s Pub written on the front.

And we got creative with the napkin place settings. My mom tried about a million different napkin designs before we settled on the t-shirts. We put our pub name on one side, with the person’s name on the other. My grandfather thought they were so cool, that he had plastic containers so everyone could bring theirs home without worrying about it unfolding. They used paper napkins for the meal.

A really cool thing about this year was that it was the first time I was actually in charge of something from start to finish. Normally, I will chop this and stir that, before mostly being in charge of getting the orders and serving the meal once someone else cooked it. This time, I was the one who made the bread pudding, step by step. I made it for the practice run, and for each of the suppers, so I pretty much have it memorized now. If I am invited to any potlucks, that will probably be my contribution 🙂

Even though people were generally too full to eat any of our desserts, ranging from bread pudding, Bailey’s cake and donuts to my grandmother’s home made cookies, chocolates and fruit cake, we definitely enjoyed them for a few days afterwards 😉

Although I don’t think I would ever want to actually be a waitress, being on staff for these suppers is one of the most fun jobs around. From learning dances and getting dressed up to all the games we play in the kitchen, it is almost more fun than actually being invited as a guest to the exclusive Christmas Party 😉