'Tis the Season

To be jolly! Fa la la la fa - la la la la :)

Hi friends!

I'm feeling very festive over here after a fun night entertaining some great friends at a little holiday get together we had at our place.

In front of our tree! :) 

We had a bunch of my wine club girls and their significant others over - along with my very good friend Megan and her now fiance (yay!) Brian. 

Some wine club girls: Marissa, Me, Laura, Christina, Sarah, and Mary Beth.

We had a couple of appetizers on hand, and then everyone brought their own dish + a cocktail! 

My food contributions were pretty simple...

Including a homemade Carmelized Onion Dip that I heard about over on Sweet Tooth Sweet Life: 

Delicious and very simple to make! 

An always-necessary cheese & cracker tray!

Cheeses were sharp cheddar, asiago, and smoked gouda - served with pre-sliced salami from the deli. 

I also took care of most of the desserts, with a lot of help from Trader Joe's. 

The sweets spread. 

TJ's pumpkin bread cup cakes with holiday funfetti icing. 

TJ's donut holes.

Dark chocolate shortbread stars (also from TJ's). 

Puppy chow made from the classic recipe, but with dark chocolate :) 

Peppermint bark! 

Hershey mint chocolate truffle kisses. 

I wish I would have taken pictures of what everyone else contributed, because there were some AMAZING appetizers at the par-tay, but I was just too busy socializing. 

I had so much fun decorating our apartment before the party. 

Our stockings - everything you see is from Target! 

I used ornaments to personalize the stockings until we can get our names embroidered. 

Centerpiece - ornaments and pine cones. 

I got the centerpiece idea from Pintrest, of course! 

Those are cinnamon-scented pine cones that I now have all throughout the apartment because they smell so festive.   The ornaments I got all together in a box from Target for about $15, not too shabby. 

Snowmen family courtesy of Justin's Grandma Ted! 

We are very lucky to have family with great taste in holiday decor.  

We have had so many items graciously gifted to us over the past few years, including...

Pretty Christmas tree candle holder. 

Every single ornament on our tree is from either my mom or Justin's mom :) 

We are also lucky that Justin's Aunt Jackie has an adorable consignment store in Indiana.  We have found a lot of our home decor at her store. 

Santa vases from Aunt Jackie's store - No Place Like Home 

Moose (I now know it is NOT a reindeer!) is from Tuesday Morning

Another very cute and inexpensive idea I got from Courtney at Sweet Tooth Sweet Life: 

Picture frame from Micheal's with holiday saying printed at home on our printer! 

Snowman is also gifted from family :) 

Hope you all are having a nice, relaxing weekend! 

I'm off to relax with Justin & cheer on the HOOSIERS (they're playing UK in basketball today) with all of the delicious leftovers from last nights festivities. 

GOOOO HOOSIERS & hApPy HoLiDaYs! 

xoxo

Jess