Last year I saw an idea in Real Simple magazine for a holiday wrapping party. The article suggested inviting 3-5 friends over on a weeknight for a simple supper and gift-wrapping session. The theory was your friends will appreciate some time together at the holidays even more if you can take something off their to-do list rather than adding something on (another cocktail party???). You can read more about Real Simple’s concept here.
At the time I was living in cramped quarters but I loved the idea and decided that Christmas 2009 was my year. I wanted to take it up a few notches from the Real Simple suggestion and invite 12 folks for Saturday brunch plus send good, old-fashioned, paper invitations instead of an eVite. People just don’t send paper invitations enough in my opinion! So I mustered up my inner poet and came up with this rhyme (sorry for blacking out my contact info, you can’t be careful enough these days):
To decorate for the party, I used my glass and silver containers and filled them with cards, tape, scissors, bows, ribbons, and tissue paper. I found some great deals on wrapping supplies at Costco. I arranged these in the center of my dining room table with a small arrangement of flowers.
I served Eggs Benedict Souffle, Banana Cake, Fruit Salad, Biscuits, Tea, Coffee, Bloody Marys and Pomegranate Mimosas. I prepped everything the night before except for the sauce for on top of the souffle (which was easy to whip up the morning of the party) and served it all from a buffet in my breakfast room. I’ll post the recipes later this week.
Here are some of my friends enjoying the party. Sorry for the bad photo quality!
I didn’t follow Real Simple’s advice to the letter but I liked my inspired party idea better anyway! I think I’ll make it an annual affair.
I’ve always envisioned myself as a domestic goddess. In my early 20′s when my friends were reading Cosmo, I was reading Martha Stewart Living. When dinners at their house were pizza delivery, dinner at mine was Chicken Divan casserole with homemade fudge pie.
In those years, I learned that the creative and hospitable genius I envisioned myself as was rarely the reality. One particular project, an upholstered headboard, suffered dreadfully from an impulse fabric change from neutral and beautiful to bold and busy, not to mention my mediocre-at-best sewing skills. I can now admit that it was super ugly and a total failure. But I chose to live with that thing in my master bedroom for 4 years, rather than shatter my self-imposed identity as the next Martha.
Now that I’m married and living in my dream house, I still seek out opportunities for creativity at home. Decorating, entertaining, gardening, and an occasional craft project are my favorite ways to pass my free time. But since the mistakes of those early years I’ve become a copy cat. I won’t settle for that shitty headboard anymore, I want real beauty, durability, and creativity in my home life and I want the finished product to look like it was done by a professional.
So, I steal good ideas and take all the credit.
This blog is where I’ll out my secrets and share the tear-outs, links, pics of friends’ and stranger’s houses, etc that I rip off. You’ll see pics of the outcome when I attempt the project all by myself. And since my ultimate goal is to create my own ideas for beauty and functionality in my home, I’ll walk you through my journey from ideas ripped off, to ideas inspired by what I see, to ideas that are all my own. I’ll occasionally post tallies from the “Ripped Off”, “Inspired” and “Julia Originals” tags to track my progress.
They say imitation is the best form of flattery. I’ve flattered before and I’ll flatter again. But hopefully this blog will help direct my journey to originality. I look forward to your feedback!
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