Okay, Thanksgiving is officially over and that means it’s time to gear up for our next big event: our 13th annual White Elephant party. The party of the year is set for the second weekend in December and is hopefully going to be just as successful as all prior years (well, 2006 was rough – we only had 8 people come, but to be fair we’d only been in SC for 5 months, so that’s not bad for 5 months).
The menu has been finalized, and we’ve started stocking up on ingredients to begin prepping the food. This year we opted NOT to make 12,000 cookies to give away to guests, but will be giving away something else instead. We’re quite excited about that one and we think everyone will like it a lot. And since the house has been decorated for almost a week now, my party excitement is through the roof.
This year I’m using a different house cleaner, which I’m a bit nervous about. My cleaner, who is the most amazing cleaner in the world, is not available this year. I only use her 2x a year, but she does an amazing job. Since she was already booked this year, I hopped onto Angie’s List and found a cleaner who was willing to come out for pretty close to the price that I normally pay my usual cleaner. She’ll be here the day before the party to make the house spotless for our guests. She has rave reviews on AL, so I’m hoping she’ll do as good a job as my other person.
As I said, we’ve finalized the menu now. It has changed slightly from the version I posted in July. A couple recipes got tossed in favor of ones I discovered on Pinterest. No more shrimp ceviche – now I’m making curried shrimp tarts. Instead of a tomato based bruschetta, we’re doing a lemon-thyme-ricotta version.
The next two weeks will be chaotic as we begin prepping the food, gathering together everything we need to pull it off and yes, even cleaning the house before the cleaner gets here the day before the party.
It’s the one time all year I don’t mind cleaning the house.