New Year's Eve

Oh how I love a celebration!!! This season we combined Shawn's 40th with New Year's. Yay for me! It was an amuse bouche potluck with a loose interpretation. People could bring an appetizer, snack or dessert of their choosing. The theme was ringing in the new year - duh! For the table I placed a small clock collection with a merchants bell and a wire Chrysler building in the center surrounded by a champagne bucket, festive cupcakes and the amuse. The cupcakes were butter chocolate and the one on top had a white fun-fetti cake ball decorated with silver and pearl sprinkles poked into it to represent Times Square. My amuse were individual caprese salads - basically fresh mozzarella and a grape tomato skewerd in a basil leaf and sprinkled with balsamic & olive oil - and gorgonzola & carmelized onion puff pastries. Just before midnight all who were not naturally mustachioed became so and we counted down the New Year with trumpets of champagne and 12 grapes each. It is a Spanish tradition to eat 12 grapes at Midnight - each grape represents the upcoming months. Some are sweet and some are a bit...tangy, shall we say. For each sweet grape, a sweet month and... you get the picture. In addition to mustachios, we all donned paper chapeaus, plastic bead necklaces and tooted horns & whistles. Nothing like some good old fashioned cheese!!! Hope you can join us next year!!!