If you don’t know, we take our Christmas Cookie Party pretttty seriously around these parts. This years party “Candy Cane Lane” was our 7th Annual and we had a blast!
If you want to review last years party theme – Gold and Glitter – you can check that out in the link below:
We had peppermint cocktails, candy canes of all sizes and a very special guest. Let’s review our fun day on Candy Cane Lane!
We stepped our invitation game up this year by hand delivering box-style invitation wrapped with a red and striped ribbon.
The invitation was designed by Scratch Paper Studio (LOVE Natasha’s work and she’s local for you Charlotte peeps!) and was accented by you guessed it – a candy cane! Party tip: A creative invitation sets the tone for the fun that’s to come!
Guests were thrilled to be greeted by a fabulously decorated bar cart rimming with festive goodies and the aforementioned Candy Cane Cocktail. More on that later. Thanks to Tarjay for having this bar cart that we added to our party arsenal. We can always count on you. Ridiculously over decorated bar cart below:
Not only did guests have a choice of the candy cane cocktail or a cranberry Prosecco immediately upon arrival, the drinks were delivered by the one and only Santa Claus! (Note: Large variety of Santa costumes at your nearest Party City.)
As usual, my mom strung her beautiful garland up and down the stairs in the entryway. We accented the garland with striped bows from Michaels (aka my 2nd home and the reason why I’m constantly covered in glitter during the month of December). We also lined up our cookie tins on the stairs like so:
The trees and mantels were decorated with extra special Candy Cane Care.
The main cookie table (the party has grown so much we have 2 tables of cookies now!) was lined with a beautiful red chevron runner I rented from gals at Party Reflections and a plethora of candy cane trees. It was a real peppermint overload. But in a good way.
Even the flowers were brimming with candy canes!
There were 33 cookie contenders this year and they were all winners in my book. Some standouts:
Candy Cane Cookies (you know I love a theme so I extra loved these):
The winner for Most Creative were these ADORABLE Holiday Hedgehog cookies!
Due the extreme number of cookies, people had to share cookie plates. Even a Cookie Monster couldn’t eat this many cookies…
Votes were tallied using the official ballots as we do every year:
Now that we’ve covered the cookies, let’s talk signature cocktail. Every year at the cookie party we do a signature cocktail and this years was no exception! We also provided wine and cranberry Prosecco (Prosecco + Cranberry Juice = Cranberry Prosecco), but the signature cocktail was our Candy Cane White Russian (really a Peppermint White Russian). Here’s the recipe – there’s DEFINITELY time to whip this up for your Christmas dinner!
Candy Cane White Russian (Note: Measurements aren’t exact. I just kept pouring the stuff in until it tasted pepperminty and delicious! It was a tough job but somebody had to take one for the team.)
- Whole Milk (It’s Christmas, don’t use skim milk people)
- Kahlua
- Peppermint Vodka – Specialty vodka made by Smirnoff around the holidays. It has a pretty red and white striped bottle. Can be substituted with Peppermint Creamer – creamer for your coffee! It also tastes delicious if you can’t find the specialty vodka.
- Lots of ice (Warm Milk = Ew)
- Garnish with a mini candy cane hanging off the side of the glass.
Enjoy! I mixed up a pitcher of these because come on… milk and cookies?
So let’s review: We had cookies, white russians, freaking SANTA CLAUS and good friends and family. We were totally winning…..
Here I am with my hostesses with the mostesses, my mom and my sister in law (and Santa). (Note: Wearing a Panthers Jersey because the game was on during the party – poor scheduling but we won 38-0 that day so cookies must be good luck? Go Panthers baby!)
It was a super successful 7th Annual Cookie Party- here’s the the 8th! I hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas!
Cheers, Peace and Love to all!
