Entertaining

Holiday Tablescape Ideas.

Please note: This post was created in paid partnership with Time Inc. and Chinet.

I love to entertain year-round, but the holiday season makes it so much more fun! I partnered with Chinet on a fun video that shares a bunch of ideas for how to add some sparkle and detail to your holiday tablescapes, including custom dinner menus, glittery tea light holders, and personalized place settings. With a neutral metallic palette, you can use these ideas from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and right through to New Year’s Eve! Check out the full video below:

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Entertaining

Stocking Your Holiday Bar Cart.

If you’ve ever read one of my blog posts, chances are you’re aware of my affinity for cocktails, bar carts, and all things drinking-accessory related. My collection of striped straws and cocktail stirrers rivals the prop closets at my favorite magazines (and could actually be teetering on hoarder status). With the holidays upon us, it’s the perfect time of year to get your own bar cart stocked with all of the essentials for easy entertaining (and more importantly, impromptu cocktail mixing!). I broke down all of my favorite pieces that are absolute must-haves to stock your holiday bar cart, from the bar itself, to glassware, tools, and all of the fun stuff that makes our drinks look festive! build-the-bar-cart_v2 read more

Recipes

Pilgrim Pie.

One of my favorite nerdy cooking challenges I like to give myself each year is thinking of new ways to use leftovers after the big Turkey-Day feast! Sometimes it feels like those leftovers can last for weeks, and you’re eating turkey sandwiches until you never want to see another turkey again until next Thanksgiving. I made a few of the Thanksgiving classics and experimented with a new idea for leftovers this year: layering them into a Thanksgiving leftover inspired pot-pie! Everything in this recipe can be pulled from your holiday leftovers. Start with some pie dough leftover from your holiday baking, toss in chopped up turkey and keep it juicy with some leftover gravy drizzled on top, and layer it with leftover mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce before baking with another layer of pie crust on top. The result is a slice of Thanksgiving that has just about every key leftover packed into each bite! My husband jokingly suggested that I should call this Pilgrim Pie, a rustic little nod to Thanksgiving’s roots, and I think it fits the dish perfectly! Earmark this one for your turkey-day leftovers next weekend, full recipe below:
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Home

House Prep for Holiday Guests.

With a blink of an eye it seems as though the holiday season is upon is! Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and once we finish our turkey, December always speeds right by Christmas and New Years are popping up on the calendar. This holiday season is a little bit different for us, since I’m inching through my third-trimester, we’ll be doing a bit less traveling to see friends and family out of state, and instead having some visitors stay with us! I’m sad about missing a few traditions that my family does in NY, but I’m actually really excited for mix things up and have family stay with us for the first time ever. Making everyone feel at home and special — since it’s a new tradition we’re starting this year — is top of mind for me right now. I thought it was the perfect time to share a few of my tips for how to prepare for house guests and make everyone feel welcome!img_5787 read more

Entertaining

All-Time Favorite Holiday Entertaining Pieces.

Thanksgiving is only 10 days away, which is totally boggling my mind! Over the weekend I started to write down a quick list of recipe ideas, items I need to stock up on from the grocery store, and a handful of my favorite entertaining pieces I plan to pack up and take with me when we head to my family’s house! My siblings and parents give me a hard time because I arrive for the holidays as though I needed to bring my entire kitchen with me – but I’m loyal to my favorite cooking tools, and have some go-to entertaining pieces that always make prep and serving easier. I ‘ve done a post before on my cooking essentials, and thought it would be fun this year to share my all-time favorite entertaining pieces to expand my list!entertaining
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Entertaining

Happy to Host with Family Circle.

It feels like the holidays are so far away, but Thanksgiving is only two weeks away, and Christmas is creeping up right behind that! I’m feeling a bit of that holiday spirit today as I flipped open the holiday issue of Family Circle and saw an entertaining piece I worked on with them sharing some easy tips for hosting during the holiday season. Check out the new issue to catch all of the tips and start getting ready for your own holiday hosting plans! img_5954

Entertaining

Stocking Your Holiday Bar Cart.

‘Tis the season for holiday spirit, and drinking those holiday spirits! One of my favorite parts of getting ready to entertain is setting up my bar cart with festive accents. I pulled together tons of inspiration for bringing pops of metallics and lots of fun details to your own holiday bar cart (all of which are under $75!). Add a classic bar cart — this one is a steal from Target — to get your entertaining game in tip-top-shape before Christmas and New Years.Holiday Gold Bar Cart read more

Entertaining Life

Improper Bostonian – Home for the Holidays.

Just a few days after we had moved into our new house in October I got an email to participate in one of the most fun photo shoots I’ve worked on to date — a holiday entertaining piece in the Improper Bostonian. We had a tiny window to shoot this holiday DIY feature and by some amazing luck, a group of talented, creative ladies got together with me to help pull it off (with stacks of my unpacked belongings in the nearby background). Below are a few pictures from the shoot (and two more behind-the-scenes pictures from that day); you can read the full article here: Improper Bostonian – Home for the Holidays.1125DIY-9 read more

Entertaining

Happy to Host.

If you’re waiting in line at the grocery store this week and see the new issue of Family Circle magazine, pick it up and give it a flip through, you just might see a familiar face (me!!). I’m excited that for the second year in a row to be their Happy to Host blogger, sharing hostess ideas for November holidays. In the article you’ll find a bunch of my tips for making holiday hosting a little bit less stressful and a little more fun this year. You’ll also get an exclusive recipe that I created for the holiday season with help of Hidden Valley Ranch: ranch roasted root vegetables, a family-friendly spin on some classic fall flavors that just might be the perfect way to spice up your Thanksgiving table this year. Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset

Entertaining

A Holiday Table DIY Menu.

On our holiday dinner table, space can be at a premium — and we would always prioritize food and drink over tons of decorative details, which is where the idea for this simple, multi-use DIY came from. I washed out a rich green colored wine bottle with the intention of serving water in it on the Thanksgiving table, and decided to give it one more purpose: a passable menu detailing all of the great Thanksgiving dishes we’ll be feasting on. With a thick permanent marker, I hand-lettered the main dishes down the center of the bottle and finished it off with a large script ‘menu’ title where the base and neck meet. The best part? It costs nothing to make (well, minus the cost of the wine, but let’s be honest: I was going to drink that anyway!). IMG_5082-0.JPG