Christmas Party

Last night Jason and I hosted our first party in Prague. This last week has been a mad dash to get everything ready for the party. Unfortunately the list was pretty long since we had put off a lot of things on our "to do" list. The party was a catalyst for the completion of many "to do" items. We had to buy new dishware and glassware since we had not replaced all of our broken things from when the kitchen cabinets fell off the wall last year. We had to clean the windows which we hadn't done since we moved here! We also finally hung pictures in the kitchen.

My friends were all great helps to me. One friend brought me to a wholesale dish/glassware store which was great. Since it is a wholesaler you have to have a business license to shop there which I don't possess so having a friend with one who is willing to go shopping with me was great. The prices were so much lower I saved a ton of money and now have new dishes. They were out of stock on many of the glasses I wanted but that was ok since other friends let me borrow their Makro card. Makro is a big box store similar to Costco but you have to have a business to be a member. I went to Makro and bought the rest of the glassware that I wanted as well as wine and other food/drink for the party. Again, because it is basically a wholesaler the prices are a lot cheaper so I was able to save money here as well. After acquiring all these wonderful new dishes and glasses I had to, of course, wash them all. It also required reoganizing the kitchen to have appropriate storage for everything. In the reorganizing we realized we needed another storage container so off to Ikea I went. Jason and I laughed about storage b/c whenever it seems like we can't fit more things in the apartment we somehow manage to get more organized and we can fit more things.

Anyway, I made a lot of cookies and then bagged them all and put them in gift bags with pretty ribbon to give to our guests as a little christmas present. I also made spring rolls, spinach puff pastry, BBQ pulled pork, chocolate cream pie, chocolate chip bread pudding with caramel sauce , and brownies. Store bought items filled in the rest of the food...shrimp cocktail, nuts, olives, chips, and cheese & crackers. We also served, wine, beer, soda, water but in addition we created 4 speciality drink cards with instruction on making a drink for those who wanted a christmas cocktail..holly-tini, christmas cosmopolitan, peppermint stick or for the non drinkers the Merry red dragon mocktail. There was plenty of food and drink for everyone and it was a great group of people. One of the things that is great about living here is the diverse group of people that we have in our lives. Last night we had friends from Scotland, England, Australia, Czech, Russia, Slovakia, Canada, United States, Poland and Serbia here celebrating with us. It was a great night.

I am looking forward to entertaining more often now and welcoming more of our friends into our home. I will post pics soon. I, unfortunately, didn't take many pictures last night so once my friend e-mails the pics she took I will post them.