Easy Holiday Entertaining with a Grazing Table

/ Fiddle Dee Dee / Leave a comment

Tis the season to entertain – whether it’s an open house, a cookie swap, or a family gathering, our homes can become quite busy during the holiday season. While I love to prepare a huge feast, teaching doesn’t allow a lot of spare time to prepare a big dinner. But, throughout my years of hosting events, I have discovered many ways to entertain beautifully, without exhausting yourself. One of my favorite ways is a buffet where your guests contribute a covered dish to accompany your menu, but I also enjoy serving food in the more casual, but beautiful style of a “grazing table”. 

While the term “grazing table” doesn’t sound so pretty, these tables laden with snacks and treats are so easy to assemble plus can be as elaborate or simple as you would like! It’s a great way to elevate your party. When I think of a grazing table, I often think of illustrated scenes from A Christmas Carol and the ghost of Christmas present where he is generally seen lounging around a table laden with food. While today’s economy doesn’t quite allow for that exhorbitant display, you get the picture of what’s in my mind.

So, what is a grazing table, and how do you set it up?

First, a grazing table is honestly nothing more than an elevated charcuterie board. It is more diverse and includes plenty of sweet to accompany the savory. With a grazing table you create a tablescape by creatively and artfully arranging meats, cheeses, crudites, fruits, vegetables, flowers, and dishes. It’s a relaxed and fun way to serve your guests without having to cook a full meal. It’s also casual enough guests can venture back and forth to grab a bite or two without over fixing a plate. A grazing table is perfect for nearly any event since they include a bite of something for anyone attending. These delectable tables work well with open houses, cocktail hour, viewing the big game, girls’ night in, or for a houseful of teenagers.

Second, have a table. Ok, so maybe that’s a bit cheeky, but you do need a serving station. You can use a buffet, a countertop, smaller end tables, or the entire kitchen or dining room table. Think outside the box for your set-up if you would like to leave your table free. You can even choose multiple locations for a set up and divide the sweets from the appetizers. There are many ways to lay out your spread, but for a semi-casual evening, I lay parchment or wax paper directly on my space and arrange a smallish centerpiece. You don’t really need a big centerpiece as you can include elements of the centerpiece around the table.

Centerpiece ideas for Christmas include, fresh greenery, cranberries, unscented candles, peppermint sticks or Christmas wrapped chocolates. Pomegranates, oranges, unshelled nuts, and apples make great centerpiece accessories as well. Tuck in a few fresh roses, ribbon and ornaments that match your home decor. The possibilities are endless, and you can carry the theme throughout your entire table.

My centerpiece on this table was nothing more than washed, fresh greenery arranged down the center of the table with ornaments, candy canes, votive candles, and pinecones tucked in. I set the dishes on top and in the greenery but didn’t let it overpower the food. Normally I would add some height to my table, but this more rustic themed table fit well in the location of the girls night. I love using candles throughout our home, but especially on tabletops, so unscented votives are a must have on my list.

Third, choosing food to fill the table depends on your guests. Are you hosting a cookie swap? Choose a combination of sweet and salty bites.

Hosting a caroling party? Turn your table into a huge hot chocolate and coffee bar. 

Inviting friends and family over for a tree trimming? Add foods that cover the various elements of a dinner party from appetizers to dessert. 

These tables are easy to adjust for a theme, age group, and budget. The one thing to remember is that you are keeping things simple. Stick to a combination of savory and sweet but choose bites that go well together. Also, think of your guests and their palettes. While plates are definitely required, silverware is not. 

You can arrange the food on wooden boards, directly on the table, or a combination of both. For this Girl’s Night In table I created, there were several elements for serving, which did leave dishes to be washed, but I used disposable plates and serving utensils which kept those dishes to a minimum. No host or hostess wants to be up late washing dishes after everyone goes home!

Finally, here are some easy ideas for a simple grazing table: Fresh fruit, nuts, pepperoni, salami (really any type of cured meat … uncured if you want to avoid unnecessary nitrates), small pickles, assorted cheeses, bread sticks, chocolate covered pretzels, cookies, crackers, chopped fresh veggies, caprese salad picks, and olives. To that add dips and mustards, and you’ve created a beautiful tablescape laden with colorful and tasty food. As long as you have a table filled with various flavors and textures, you can’t really go wrong.

Have you ever created a grazing table for an event? I would love to hear what all you included to serve your guests. 

Do you think you would put together a table for anything you have coming up? I would love to see and hear all about your ideas!

Preparing for Christmas Using Basic Invite Christmas Cards

/ Fiddle Dee Dee / Leave a comment

My Christmas list is a little different than the Jolly ole Elf’s at the North Pole.

Currently, it’s a list that includes decorating, baking, entertaining, parties, school activities, parades, editing pictures, and Christmas cards. Other years the list has involved travel or sports, but despite those items permanently checked off my list I still do not always find time to clear it all off, especially when it comes to sending out Christmas cards. I have not sent out Christmas cards the last two years due to various lame excuses, so this year I made a promise to myself that it would be done!

Basic Invite is my go-to for checking cards off the list this year and I’m excited to preview their
holiday post cards.

Custom Christmas card photo cards are so popular now and are a fabulous way to tell your family’s story without using words.

The most difficult part of using Basic Invite for your holiday card, is choosing the design you want to use!

First, they have premade templates where you can upload your own photos, but then you have the option to customize the template you choose! Basic Invite has over 180 color options that include instant preview so you can make sure your card coordinates with your picture or your style. If you want more than a digital preview, you can order a sample of your card to make sure it is exactly what you had in mind! Adding a personal touch to cards, such as color, font, or foil (yes, you can add rose gold, silver and gold to your card) is a great way to turn a simple into a lovely keepsake. Our cards have a very non-traditional photo this year, with very non-traditional colors woven throughout, but guess what?! I can take a picture of Audley and I working with the lambs on our farm and make it look festive.

So, I did. They’ll be here next week, and I can’t wait to see them and share them with you all!

After choosing your card style, you can decide whether you wanted it printed glossy or matte, with or without embossed foil, and even choose the color envelope you want to accompany the card.

All with just a couple of clicks.

Oh, and those envelope colors?

There are forty to choose from.

And, they are all peel and seal, so no icky aftertaste lingering around for hours.

So far with Basic Invite we have a plethora of templates, 180+ color options, instant preview with an option to order a sample to make sure you like it, multiple envelope choices to elevate your card could you imagine any more bonuses?

How about letting Basic Invite address your cards for you?

With Basic Invite’s free address collection system, you send a link to your friends through social media to fill out with their information, which will upload to their system with your cards. Addressing cards while watching It’s a Wonderful Life is ideal, but we all know folding clothes, washing dishes, or grading papers will probably take precedent, so at least for this year having my envelopes preaddressed will be perfectly acceptable!

I think one of my favorite things about using Basic Invite is there are so many more ways to use them throughout the year. From unique business cards to treasured graduation invitations Basic Invite really has you covered in a beautiful and personal way.

This post is sponsored by our friends at Basic Invite, where you can find all of your card needs in one place with free address printing and fast shipping on every order.

Use my code 15FF51 to save 15% on your order!

Let me know if you check them out this holiday season!

Thanksgiving Prep

/ Fiddle Dee Dee / Leave a comment

Yikes!

We are just four days away from Thanksgiving! This month has flown by. Normally at this point of Thanksgiving week, my tree would be decked, and a flurry of baking would be taking place in the kitchen.

As I write tonight my tree is still packed up in the basement, Audley is working on a few lingering projects at home, and “Christmas Vacation” is playing in the background of my hotel room while I’m in Nashville for the Junior Beta Club Convention. My elementary students have had a great weekend and I love to see their enthusiasm for educational endeavors and our middle schoolers are arriving tonight, but oh how I wish it was another weekend than right before Thanksgiving!

I daresay a man who doesn’t have a clue about getting “holiday ready” planned it. HA!

As is tradition, we will spend our Thanksgiving Day at my parents’ house along with some of my children, my siblings, nieces and nephews. It is always such a big deal; something I look forward to each year, and such a special time. Since I am busy with Beta Club until Tuesday, planning and organizing my Thanksgiving plans has been of upmost importance to compensate for a lack of time. Audley and I purchased most of our holiday groceries a couple of weeks back, just leaving us the fresh items on our list. I’ll pick those up Tuesday as I head home.

As I mentioned, we’ll be at Dad and Momma’s for the holiday. We all pitch in dinner and start with a flurry of text messages around the last of October tossing around ideas and nailing down the menu. Our Thanksgiving recipes are rooted in American as well as family heritage, plus a few surprises. With a large family, we serve both turkey and ham. Momma always takes care of the ham, and I generally handle the turkey. My sisters, sister-in-law, Samantha, Madeline, and I also plan for an abundance of sides and desserts. No one leaves hungry and generally we don’t have to cook on Friday either.

Open-faced turkey sandwich with gravy anyone?

Everyone leads a pretty busy life these days, but the key to stress-free entertaining is organization and to plan ahead, especially when it comes to the Thanksgiving meal. With a little planning and prep everything will come together nicely for a big holiday gathering. I’m a list maker, so first I jotted down my contributions to the Thanksgiving feast. From this list it’s easy to make my grocery list, prioritizing when certain items are to be purchased. This year my contributions are as follows: turkey stuffed with citrus and fresh herbs, corn pudding, possibly oyster stuffing, cranberry relish, pumpkin pies, and bourbon pecan pie.

I don’t know about you, but any holiday having a timeline is a huge help for me. I begin light planning and prep at the beginning of November and have everything laid out in writing to get me through Thanksgiving. Some of the things included in my timeline is thawing time for the turkey (your own turkeys should be in the refrigerator by now), making the menu and grocery list, making sure you have proper cook’s tools to prepare everything, and details on when to begin preparing your foods.

Generally everything is written in my planner, but having something pinned to the refrigerator is a huge help as well. Here is a graphic I created that you could print off to print and hang for yourself.

Just click to download and print!

thanksgiving-checklistDownload

The joy of preparation and organization is the time it leaves for you to enjoy the company of your family! How do you organize your holiday dinners? Let me know if this little timeline is helpful for you.

Up next: my cranberry relish recipe. You’ll never open a can of cranberry jelly again!

In the words of Thomas Rhett: “Life Changes”

/ Fiddle Dee Dee / 2 Comments

As Audley and I headed into the empty nest a couple of years ago we heard things like “you’ll be so sad”, “you’re not going to know what to do”, “now you can relax”, blah, blah, blah … not on single person ever said the empty nest was utterly exhausting!

WHEW!

I’ve sat down to write so many times over the last year, and nothing comes to mind. It’s not that we have nothing going on, or that I have little to share, but more of we have allowed extreme busyness take control of our lives. This has not been a difficult year by any means, just one we’ve poured so much energy into other people and things that somedays my pitcher is often empty.

After seventeen moves in twenty-eight years, having our own home to settle into has been absolutely amazing. Eighteen months ago, as we made this move, we had a huge vision of what we wanted, but as you all know, what we want is seldom what happens. Let me tell you though, this man-of-mine is a doer! He’s always been amazing, but Audley is truly bringing our dream to life while working, playing papa, acting as a deacon in the church and loving me. He’s pretty much perfect.

Instead of trying to detail all of the things that have happened in the last eighteen months, here are a few highlights that bring you current:

**First, I thought I was only going to teach school for a year, to help get Kimball Christian Academy off the ground. Now I’m in the middle of year two, teaching middle school social studies in a tiny school that doubled its size. I work hard to be an effective teacher. My classes have to read and quiz, but we also do a lot of hands-on experiences from food and projects to fieldtrips. I don’t assign homework, but if work isn’t finished in class, it goes home. We take a lot of open book quizzes because I want my students digging back into the reading and truly learning to comprehend, not just memorize answers off of a study guide. Fridays are generally “fun” learning, but I am being the buzzkill this week and throwing out a vocabulary test right before Thanksgiving break. I don’t know how long I will do this for a couple of reasons. There are days I love my job, but there are plenty of days that I understand why teachers are walking out of a classroom. Between parents, ill-behaved children, personal investment, and politics, teaching school (even in a small private school) just stinks. This is not my first time in a classroom and when I walked away from a teaching opportunity in 2007 after two years in a classroom, I never thought I would do this again. I’m thankful KCA can give the gift of education without following public school and most government guidelines, but public schools have left children woefully unprepared and many of those coming into our school are so behind. If I had school-age children, they would either be home-schooled, or I would find a program similar ours to enroll them in. Appreciate your teachers; it’s hell out there.

**Second, for the first time in six years, all three of our girls live within an hour of us. You know we’ve lived a rather nomadic lifestyle as Audley went where the work was located. We always went with him if the job was eight months or longer because families are not meant to be separated. Children need both parents as they grow up, and a wife and husband need each other. When we moved to South Carolina years ago, Samantha remained at “home” in Tennessee/Alabama as she was engaged to be married. We moved to Georgia six years ago, leaving Gracie in South Carolina as she was to be married. Madeline married her Marine three years ago, and they moved off to Florida to adopt a baby. When Audley and I purchased our house and moved “home” to be closer to our parents, we never imagined the moves that would happen! Gracie and her hubby are just an hour away with TWO of our grandbabies. Michael found a wonderful congregation looking for a minister which took them out of the city and into Tennessee. At the same time (and I do mean the same week), Madeline and her husband moved from Florida with their newly adopted son. They stayed with us over the summer while looking for a place of their own and now live just ten minutes away. With Samantha and Justin eighteen minutes away, my parents twenty-five minutes away, and Audley’s parents an hour away, we are savoring every moment of family time. And, I have not forgotten Bradley. After his four years in the Marines, he is in South Carolina working for Grainger, and just purchased his first house at the age of twenty-three! We are very proud of the life choices our children have made, and I love watching them “adult”!

**In other family news, since my last post, we’ve gone from one grandbaby and one in the process of adoption, to FOUR grands! Gracie has two of the sweetest girls you will ever meet, and Madeline has two boys. Khi’s adoption was finalized in March of this year, and she announced her pregnancy the same day! Khi and Mariah are both two, just three months apart, and Marley and Atler are just ten days apart: arriving in late September and early October. We’re in Lolli and Papa heaven around here!

As for our home, Audley and I have slowly been painting and decorating and remodeling and farming …. You read that right, farming. Audley built me a gorgeous raised-bed garden where we just added a greenhouse. We had a wonderful harvest this past summer as I put up tomatoes three different ways, made pickles, preserved squash, peppers, green beans, pumpkin, and okra, feasted on fresh cukes, and other delights all summer and fall. I also dried an assortment of herbs from parsley to lemon thyme. We have started raising sheep and also keep chickens, pheasants, and quail. Audley calls this his retirement plan. Honestly, this is where my heart is. It’s also one reason I struggle being in a classroom, but for now I will remain to help this little school grow! “Mrs. Jones” is also the Beta Club sponsor, yearbook editor, and program planner, and with no children of my own in school, that is a little excessive. There are days I feel like I’m neglecting my home and husband because of the tiredness. I am so thankful for his support and backing.

There is many an evening I find it difficult to unwind to prepare for bed. Matthew 11:28 is a verse I’m desperately trying to incorporate into my life; “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

Blogging has always been a much-needed outlet for my thoughts and creativity. As I am working to find balance in this busy life, I hope to return more regularly to share all of the craziness, but also the recipes and home life I truly enjoy. Drop a note and say hello. If it’s your first time visiting, welcome. If you’ve somehow managed to hang in on social media while I figure out a balance …. THANK YOU!!

Have a great weekend!