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.