What a great post! We moved into our house in March of 2012 and we love to entertain. It is much easier in the warmer months since we have a large covered patio and the kids can play outside. However, we hosted our first large indoor gathering this past Christmas and it was very stressful!! So what were the lessons learned from this last party?? 1) Make rules for the children. -We found food in toy bins and stickiness from spilled juice on the playroom floor. Next time we will tell kids that food and drink are only allowed in the kitchen and dining room. -Designate one bathroom for the kids and put kid friendly towels in them. We have a beautiful powder room which got torn apart...scuffs on our beautiful vanity, stains on the nice towels, etc. Next time we will tell the kids to use the kids bathroom only. -LOCK doors! We did this for this party and it worked out great! We locked the toy room closet and left out several toys that were easy to put away. We also locked bedroom doors that we didn't want kids to go into. Closing a door is not enough! Kids usually end up opening closed doors out of curiosity or open them if they decide to play hide and seek! In our case this forces kids to stay in the play room area only with the kids bathroom close by. 2) Make sure you get RSVP's. We made WAY too much food so we ended up sending guests home with food. Even still a lot of food was wasted. I think it is always better to have too much food rather than not enough, but it was excessive in our case! 3) Clean as you go! We have double dishwashers so I could have easily cleaned up while talking to the ladies after dinner. Instead we all sat around and relaxed. The kids then had meltdowns and many were not able to stay and help clean up. My hubby got called into work at the end of the night and I was left with a major kitchen disaster at the end of the night! Yikes!! I think in the future I may hire a pair of high school gals to help keep the kids in order, help serve, and help clean up at the end of the night! Now for things that DID work out: -Preparing as much as I could the night before (e.g., setting the table, setting up beverages, putting out platters with sticky notes labeling what will go in them the next day, empty dishwashers, clean bathrooms and check toilet paper, etc) -Asking guests to bring something. I provided the main dishes and some appetizers. But then guests brought salad, side dishes, and dessert. We had designated areas for the appetizers/salad, main/side dishes, and dessert. So when the guests arrived we had them place the food in the appropriate area. I have learned to not have guests bring main dishes. We've run into problems in the past where people brought small dishes and there wasn't enough food to go around. -Self-serve beverage station. We get drinks for guests when they first arrive, then we make it easy for them to serve themselves for the rest of the night. We usually do beer, wine, and sometimes margaritas. Then we have a large self serve beverage jar that has water and lemon slices in it. And then juice for the kids. Juice boxes are a no-no because inevitably the kids squeeze too hard and the juice gets everywhere. At dessert time, we turn on a huge hot water dispenser and leave out a tray of different teas and chai. For the kids we leave out plastic cups and a Sharpie pen for parents to write their kids' names on the cups. Then for the adults I leave out wine and/or margarita glasses with charms on them (the charms are all different so guests can easily identify their charm/glass). I also leave out crystal clear plastic cups for adults to use if they want water. Depending on the size of the party, for hot drinks I will leave out either mugs or disposable hot cups. BTW, I also have crystal water goblets at each adult place setting. And I leave a crystal pitcher of water on the table at dinner time. -Having an adult table and a kids table. We had the adult table in the dining room and the kids table in the breakfast nook. This allowed us to have nice adult conversation without the kids interrupting us. We also had the kids eat first so adults could assist if needed. Makes for a more peaceful adult dinner time since the kids mostly played while we ate. -We did a gift exchange for the kids only. It was fun to watch kids open up a gift. -We took family pictures. We pulled each family to the fireplace area and took a family picture for them. I still have yet to email them out :) I have to admit, I was not crazy about doing an indoor party for that many adults and kids. Clean up was MUCH harder indoors. We may have to do a Christmas in July party this year so we can have the party outdoors!! Or have an adult only party at Christmas time. This post was edited by janealexa on Sat, Jan 5, 13 at 17:52

But to narrow down the search....how about spinach brownies... And you can hardy beat a bowl of ice cold shrimp and some cocktail sauce. No one will compliment you on the recipe....but all will enjoy it. Linda C

Thank you very much everyone for your wonderful comments! tsugajunkie , I have not made one with chard. I should give that a try. I like chard, and I have a ton of chard in my garden. defrost49 , yes, that is black garlic sauce, home made. Martha Scott , I don't always make BLT, I have made many kinds of B?Ts. catherinet , Bacon was on sale. I have 10 lbs in the freezer. Good enough for the tomato season this year. bragu_DSM 5 " Garden fresh tomatoes are the best ... 1,000x superior to the flavorless store bought, ---" Thanks for telling me! Now I am unhappy. My tomatoes are only 500x better than store bought. :-) FOAS, when I have too many tomatoes, I put them in the fridge. I know people say you shouldn't, but I have not noticed any lack of quality with chilled tomatoes. 2MD, you are embarrassing me. I know I have this bad habit of always play with my food. A friend told me this is the most "politically correct " plated dish: The tomatoes are rainbow colored, and the sauces are black and white peacefully hanging out together. Andie , yes, those are Sungolds. Annie, you should try GWR tomaotoes. That in the picture is Green Giant. In the oicture the yellowish one is actually White Queen, and the yellowish orange one is Amanna Orange. dcarch

FOAS, perhaps the trick is to do both MIL's and Yia Yia's recipes? Keep everybody's noses on straight? Nice of your MIL to find and send all the recipes. I know how the mandelbroit in Grandma's cookie jar were made, but that bakery closed decades ago.... :D PM and Edie, I just meant too flavorful for the filling. They're really good ! And ripe and lovely. I didn't halve them though, just cut out the stem then scraped out the innards and drained. I packed them almost to splitting, but there was so much tomato flavor, it masked the bacon salad, which is a flavor bomb on its own. Live and learn. The little tomatoes were all oval and teardrops and the plums were sad, so these really were the best choice. And the little tomatoes have even more flavor. So that gave me a few more minutes with the company, only assembling the half dozen. No one fancy there. They were fine spooning the bacon salad out of the plastic storage container. :) Beesneeds, thank-you for the clear explanation! I think on some level I knew most of that but didn't think of it in my frustration. You've made it all clear and organized. The recipe mentioned using frozen, so I'll try that next. Mind were the bagged fresh English peas, so pretty mature. We only ever see petits pois frozen. But they always have them frozen. If I can get myself from eating all of them before they go in the oven (candy!)... Thanks so much for the advice. Re Mr. Bacon: My friends and family don't do social media and don't want others to do it for them, so I don't use names. It can be very inconvenient and I'm beginning to lose patience, so I named a beloved but unconventional eater who I've been trying to feed (mixed success and failure. I'm still learning). I call him Mr. Picky. Then another of our circle, who has a very mixed bag of cooking skills and massive lacks (I try to help, but he's resistant to learning how to think about cooking), has been withholding the secret to the so amazing bacon. It's always the same and extremely perfect to my mind. I started a thread asking for advice and the consensus was flat on a lined sheet pan in a hot oven. It yielded good bacon (ignoring the part that got charred, which was all my fault), but didn't come close to his. I was really tired after three long days of schlepping and cooking food, so I named him Mr. Bacon. I'm still keeping up with the don't post about us rules and it's so much easier to call him that. Edie, I have rainbow baby snack carrots. I may still make the lucky coins with the big ones. Or I could steam them and put them in Sunday's dinner. I've been thinking about tacos adobos casserole, but don't have it all figured out yet. Or I could shave them! The same kind of thing has happened to me as your mop and bucket. Worry not! i've been told that it lends a homey feel. :) No brevity here. I'm still really tired, though I got myself through this morning's meeting. I'll be interested to see the pierogi and kielbasa forthcoming.