First Annual Epiphany Dinner Party

I have tried and tried to upload an image for this post, but it's just not working for me today, so I'll just post and maybe I can get it to upload later.

This year I had the first of, hopefully, many dinner parties. I got the idea from one of my sister, Christina's, friends. It's called an Epiphany Dinner Party. The reason for this is because there is a holiday called "Epiphany" that falls on the 6th of January that commemorates the day that the Three Wise Men met the Savior. It's also supposed to officially be the last day of the Holiday season. What better excuse do you need to have a party? And this was a very fancy party.

I sent out the invitations a week in advance and five of my friends said that they could make it. The party was from 5-8 and they all showed up right around the same time (5:15).
Fashionably late, of course. We started off with crackers and cheese and cranberry pomegranate juice in the living room. (We totally rearranged our formal room and living room for the event.) It was the first time that I was able to use the beautiful pitcher and cups I got from my Nana when I went to visit her in Canada about 7 years ago.

We sat and chatted for a little while and then we moved into the formal room for dinner. I hired a girl from church, Courtney Gilbert, to come and serve us so I didn't have to keep getting up and down. We started off with a really nice salad. It was from a kit and had creamy balsamic vinagrette dressing topped with dried cranberries, sweet pecan chips and feta cheese. It was really good.

After the salad, Courtney served us Butternut Squash soup. I was a little worried because I had never tried it before. As a matter of fact, all of the things that I made (or purchased) were new to me. However, the soup turned out to be really good!

After the soup we were served the main course. I had made Cornish game hens with new potatoes and artichoke hearts. Courtney served this with a side of steamed vegetables. Another fantastic dish. The meal was finished with a slice of pumpkin cream cake, a snicker doodle cookie and a cup of wassail. (This was my first opportunity to use the tea set my Nana gave me). I had gone to town earlier in the day to purchase a drink that I hadn't had in a while that I thought would go nicely with dinner. It was a sparkling grape juice made by Meier's called Cold Duck.

Perfect.

It all was very lovely and a huge success.

After dinner we retired to the living room for an evening of talking and playing Dirty Santa. We all brought gifts to exchange and along with a little gift opening, there was a little gift stealing. It was very fun!

The whole evening turned out to be wonderful. I had some parting gifts for the ladies, little Santa and snowmen boxes that they all loved. And everyone said that they hoped I would make this an annual thing because they really enjoyed themselves. And, how often do young mothers get an opportunity to be pampered and relax and just have grown up conversation without any interruption?

I will definitely do it again!