Wine Club at Christmas

It was our turn to host our wine club Saturday night.

In the dining room, I used these Brunswig and Fils fabric runners with pine cones and red transferware.

 

Here's another area of the design.  I made these years ago and they are my go to linens for Christmas.  I always use them at least once.  You can see a luncheon I did with a pine cone theme for my bridge buddies a couple of years ago here.

 

I re-created the centerpiece as well.  It's just a glass cloche turned upside down and filled with real and glass pine cones and acorns and surrounded with reindeer moss.  The good thing about this is that since there are no fresh flowers or greens, it lasts for the entire season.

Here's some photos of the table before the guests arrived.  Each couple brought great appetizers and they filled in the table beautifully.

I used these tartan napkins and Lenox salad plates for appetizers.  Plain red napkins might have looked better, but I didn't have 2 dozen of them.

These stag candle holders joined the party.  You can see a dinner party where I used these for a stag themed table.  It was one of my favorites and you can see it here.

 

I was really pressed for time, so my appetizers were mostly short-cuts that I just garnished cleverly!  This is crab dip from Publix.  The top is 1/2 of a carton, the middle is an entire carton, and the bottom is 1 1/2 carton.  I garnished with olives, red peppers, a carrot, black olives and a brown foam paper hat.  It's sitting on a glass plate, even though it looks like it is directly on the fabric!

Here's another quick idea.  I made this clam dip, but you could buy it.  Then I simply placed broccoli and cherry tomatoes into it.  You can't see the red pepper star too well, but I thought a yellow pepper would work even better.

I made sure that anything with seafood was clearly labeled and I used these stag placecard holders for the cards.

This is just purchased pimento cheese with whole smoked almonds pressed into it.

These were cuter than they look here.  I took a block of cream cheese, cut it into half diagonally, and put the long edges together, forming a tree.  A cinnamon stick was the trunk, and I used green pepper jelly with diced red pepper on top.

The red pepper tree was just the opposite.  Duh!

I set the dessert table up in the bar. Sorry that these are so dark, but they were taken JUST before our guests arrived. 

This tiered stand held Reeses Cup cookies and cheesecake bars topped with red raspberries.  I also made a chocolate/peppermint roll that was fabulous, and a red velvet trifle that I'll do a post on soon.

This end of the table held coffee fixings and cups. It was much prettier when the candles were lit.

 

The glasses were set up on this cool ultrasuede runner.

Do you love it?  It has stags and pine trees.  Whoohoo!

These were the red wines we served.  The whites were in a great, huge silver bowl with ice that I didn't remember to photograph.  The bowl was a giveaway from Alycia Nichols (Tablescapes at Table Twenty One blog).  It's fabulous and it's a great perk for following such a terrific blog.

Here's a quick shot of the other side of the sink with a cute bar towel that a guest brought us a couple of years ago.  Love them!

 

We're finally into a whirlwind of entertaining, so I'll be back with more soon!

 

Merry Christmas!