Andrea and Nate's Christmas Dinner Party

The best thing that has kept me from chowing down on ALL of these cookies..

is that I arranged sets for giving away- one to Andrea's last night

A set for Jeff's mom today

and a set for my mom tomorrow.

Since we couldn't "touch" those, minus a few samplings that I didn't photo, it was pretty easy to keep my hand out of the cookie jar so to speak. , I did eat one from all the different types I made to make sure they were delightful, but I didn't feel like taking a photo of "each one I ate" when I had taken so many photos of them otherwise for posts/recipes/etc. Today, I had the bourbon truffles and the chocolate windows- both are super rich and chocolatey.

Party Table:

So at the bottom is a cheese ball (Andrea used fat free cream cheese, pineapples, green onion, pepper, covered in walnuts) and cheddar with cranberries inside, to the right of that is banana bread, then soup, then pizza muffins, behind the centerpiece was Artichoke Bruscetta (fabulous!)On the far left was a bean dip, buffalo chicken dip ( Delicious), Apple Slices, Cheese Slices, and Crackers

My plate:

The artichoke bruschetta ( I have to get the recipe it was awesome) is in the middle- I had one more of these guys unpictured.

The buffalo dip, not too spicy but cheesy goodness, a chip with bean dip, cheese slices, the cheese with cranberries, cracker.

Unpictured: I split a pizza muffin with Jeff, I had a few more nibbles of Andrea's cheese "ball" and the cheese with cranberries (the cheesiness went well with my red wine, also unpictured was a total of 2 big glasses). Its funny because I am a huge dessert person, most nights I have something for dessert. I think the cheese was so satisfying ( as well as the company) and the fact that I had sampled my baking efforts with the chocolate windows, the chocolate bourbon truffles, etc. left me not wanting dessert! (gasp) Actually I tried a bite of the "Chocolate Sex Cake" that Andrea made, it was good but dare I say it, I was chocolated-out!

The good times began...
For the record this was fairly early and we were all still sober...

Andrea, Timmy, Me.

Brit stole my camera and took candid shots of two love birds ...

Jeff decided to go as.. Robert Goulet. It was not a costume party, he is just an awesomely funny and dashingly handsome person. Nate always asks him to do it, so it was a gtd (game time decision). If you do not know who Goulet is... check out Will Farrell's skits at SNL here: .

Andrea and Robert Goulet dancing, Hanz is admiring Goulet's moves.


Goulet, apparently he is a ladies man.
( jeff, rachelle, carrie, me, brit, andrea).

Fantastic night, we ended up staying over. I am definitely tired more than anything because I finally crashed at about 3 am- Lots of dancing, card playing, guitar Hero, lots of reasons to stay up and celebrate! We met Will's girlfriend (Lauren) and Nick's girlfriend (Carrie) for the first time and they are both very nice! I am hoping I remember their names so that is why I wrote them.