The Elf Blog

Spring and Summer Entertaining

Spring and summer are a great time to entertain. Lots of good opportunities. Wonderful fresh foods to eat. And if the weather is good, you can entertain outside so you don't have to celan your house (except for access to a bathroom).

Take some time this weekend to think about your spring and summer entertaining plans. Here are som ideas to get you started:

•Mother's and/or Father's Day.

•Memorial Day and Fourth of July.

•Graduation parties.

•Bridal showers.

•A cookout can be a simple and elegant meal. You can grill meat, fish, veggies, fruit. Even pizza.

•Outdoor happy hour. All you need is a tub of ice and a blender. Especially good on Fridays.

How will you entertain this season?

Do Entertaining and Dieting Mix?

Last month, I discussed my diet. I still hate it, but I'm having good success so far. But I really wondered if I would still be able to throw parties without destroyng the diet. I love entertaining. It's a part of me. I'd hate having to give it up -- more than I hate limiting my pizza intake.

On Easter, I'm attempting to host brunch without blowing the diet. I modified a few of my go-to recipes and pulled others from the Cooking Light website. I'm doing several salads instead of several desserts. In shopping today, I also took much more care in limiting the quantities of ingredients that I purchased. Hopefully, that will mean that I won't have tons of leftovers that will tempt me to pick. I've also decided that whatever I have left will either go into the freezer, in to work, or into my lunchbox within the first few days of next week.

I'll report back how it goes.

Winter Entertaining

We don't often think of the winter as a great time to entertain, but there are some excellent reasons to gather friends in your home. Here are some of my favorites:

• February 5th is Super Bowl Sunday
• February 14th is Valentine's Day
• February 21st is Mardi Gras
• February 26th is Oscar Night

Any of those days are a great time to put out some food (homemade or picked up from a favorite restaurant) and celebrate.

For Super Bowl or Oscar parties, you'll want at least one TV. Since it's the Patriots versus the Giants, think lobster rolls or steamed clams versus New York pizza or hot dogs and knishes.

For Valentine's Day, all you really need is chocolate. Lots of chocolate. You better get more chocolate, just in case.

For Mardi Gras, it's always fun to do a Cajun theme with big pots of gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice. Decorate with green, gold, and purple (the traditional colors of Mardi Gras) and make hurricanes.

A Long Weekend

For many people, this will be a three-day weekend. So let’s use it well.

When you get home tonight, there’s time for a Friday Tidy so the house will be in good order, no matter what you choose to do. Here are some suggestions:

• Invite some friends over to watch the playoffs on Saturday or Sunday. Refreshments don’t need to be fancy: pizza, salad, chips, veggoes and dip, brownies, and beverages.

• Spend one day cleaning one room thoroughly or running your errands and then just enjoy the other two.

• Build a fire, make some cocoa and cookies and catch up on your reading, letter writing, or movie watching.

• Start a new winter craft project.

• Plan your garden.

• Do the mending or the hand laundry that stacks up.

• Get together with friends.

• Begin gathering documentation to do your taxes.

• Bundle up and get outside for a walk, a run, or some skiing or sledding.

What will the Elf be doing?

Friday Tidy. Grocery shopping, finishing an editing project, writing, and putting the Christmas decorations back in the attic.

Don't Move On Quite Yet

Why is it that we spend weeks (or months) preparing for Christmas, then we can't wait to finish off our celebration and move on to the next thing?

December 25th is the first day of the Christmas season, not the last. Please don't take your decorations down yet. At the very least, keep your celebration through the 12 Days of Christmas -- through January 6th.  (I don't care what the stores tell you.  The 12 days start with Christmas, they don't end there.)

Enjoy the seaso.  There will be plenty of winter left when the Christas season is over.

A Big Weekend

This is the last full weekend before Christmas so, for most people, it's the last large block of non-work time to prepare. Unfortunately, that means that stores (department, grocery,big-box, boutique, etc.) will be packed this weekend. Unless you can get to a store at an off hour (like grocery shopping at 6 a.m.), I recommend avoiding stores this weekend.

If you haven't finished your shopping yet, many online retailers are offering free shipping or shipping upgrades through midnight tonight. Give yourself a break and finish your shopping online.

Even better, use this weekend to make Christmas preparations at home:

• Finish your decorating. Wrap everything you have purchased.
• If you still have gifts to ship, pack them for shipment (but avoid the post office lines on Saturday!)
• Prepare cookie doughs that can be refrgerated or frozen as logs. Then you just slice and bake your homemade Christmas cookies.
• Finish your cards (if you haven't already!)
• Do a quick tidying and decluttering of the house so you are ready for guests.

And if you are finished? Sit back and enjoy the season.

As for me, I'll be hosting the Elf Extravaganza. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by!

Christmas Countdown - 2 Weeks

Christmas is two weeks from yesterday. You should be moving into end game on your preparations. By the end of this week:

• You should complete your shopping. You do not want to be in the stores this weekend. They will be packed with impatient people in bad moods.

• Ship any gifts that you cannot deliver personally. Shipping this week means shorter lines in the post office and less chance that you’ll have to pay expedited shipping charges.

• Finalize your menus for holiday meals and purchase all non-perishable ingredients.

• If you haven’t done your decorating, you at least need a timeline.

• Try to wrap the gifts you’ve already purchased.

• You want your Christmas cards to go out no later than December 20th.

• Follow the schedule you made weeks ago for baking, parties, and other biog events.

• Get into the habit of doing a quick tidy and declutter each day so the house will be prepared for folks to drop in.

• Keep some easy refreshments (chips, cheese and crackers, cocoa, wine, soda, sparkling water, etc.) on hand for guests who drop in.

You’re in the home stretch. If you’ve been following this countdown from the beginning, you should be just about ready for the holidays!

Christmas Countdown - (Less Than) 3 Weeks

It figures, I go away for a week and the blog gets a ton of visitors!

But better late than never.

Here’s your Christmas Countdown list for this week:

• Any gifts that need to be shipped have to go this week. If they are going outside the US, you're already pushing it.

• Finish up your cards and get them in the mail.

• Continue shopping. To avoid rush shipping charges or unexpected back orders, complete all online shopping.

• You might want to begin wrapping the presents you've bought.

• If you are hosting a party, confirm attendance and shop, cook, and bake.

• Decorations should be up this week (unless you keep to the German tradition of putting up the tree on Christmas Eve). You don’t have to do everything all at once. In fact, it can be very pleasant to do a little bit each day and slowly watch the house come alive with the spirit of Christmas.

• Decide what you will wear for your Christmas party, for Christmas Day, and for New Year's Eve. Drop off any necessary dry cleaning. Make necessary purchases. Even plan your accessories. It's not a bad idea to put the accessories in plastic bags and attach it to the clothing hanger with a clothespin (this hint is especially helpful if you have small children).

• Make final decisions on Christmas baking and on your major holiday meals so that you can begin purchasing the non-perishable ingredients.

Christmas Countdown: (Less than) 4 Weeks!

 

We are now under 4 weeks until Christmas!  It’s time to pick up the pace.

 

• Work on finishing up your Christmas cards.  You want them in the mail no later than December 15.
• Start your shopping in earnest. Decide how you shop best: a marathon or a bit at a time and schedule the time you need. Ideally, you should have at least half of your gifts bought before December 7^th.
• Mail gifts that have a distance to travel (anything outside the US).
• If you have some time, wrap the presents you’ve already bought.
• You may wish to start your decorating.  You may find it easier to do a little decorating each day.  It breaks up the work and you get the joy of watching your house be filled with Christmas.
• Begin finalizing your menus for Christmas entertaining as well as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
• Make your New Year’s reservations.

Thanksgiving is One Week Away!

Thanksgiving is next Thursday!

If you haven’t finalized your menu, today is the day. Also, schedule your shopping. If at all possible, avoid grocery stores between 9 and 7 on Saturday and Sunday. When I stand in lines that long, I expect a roller coaster to be at the end. Shopping off hours (even in the middle of the night) means no lines, but the shelves may not be well stocked. If you have a 24-hour store, think about shopping at 6 am on Saturday or Sunday. They’ll likely have restocked overnight for the big day, but most folks
will still be in bed.

If you aren’t using your dining room this weekend, set the table now. One less thing to worry about
next week. You can also set up the bar and place serving dishes on the table or sideboard so that you know everything is in place.

Take your turkey out of the freezer now. You don’t want to face a still-frozen turkey on Thursday morning.

Make sure you’ve decided a menu for Wednesday and Friday. Planning what you’ll need makes
life less stressful. Even better: if you’ll have guests who want to help, assign them Wednesday dinner and Friday breakfast and lunch to give yourself a break.

Beginning next week, it’s all about the cooking. So the goal this weekend is to handle everything else.