Holiday Party!

For 10 years now my sister Darra and her husband Rick have hosted a holiday party the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  And every year since we moved here we have helped get everything ready for it.  This year was no different starting with a night of decking the halls in early November to baking the week leading up to the party.  We have gotten smarter as we now keep the same decor every year and don't try to top the year before.  We found something that Darra loves and have stuck to it.  She also has her dessert list pretty fine tuned.  There are so many little things that have to be done to pull this big party off.  Darra does a great job of keeping it all organized with list after list after list.  This year I spent a lot more time up at her house helping out getting everything ready.  I have to say this year I also was excited to do some baking and really enjoyed it.  Well, the orange chiffon cake was challenging but that might of been for my lack of concentration. Must of turned out good, as there was none left at the end of the night.  I think we had 21 desserts total!  After 10 years I think we have this figured out.  We even had time to sit down and eat a little dinner before guest started showing up, this is a first!  There is always the last minute scramble to get everything out of the frig and ready to eat but that comes with having refrigerated desserts.  The party was great!  Lots of fun, great food and wonderful people.  I'm making a promise that next year I will take more pictures!  I don't know why but we always seem to forget, might be the 21 desserts and over 80 guest we have coming that makes us space the picture taking.   We did get a few though.  I have some of the week before during baking.  Then some of the cakes the night of and a few of the aftermath.