Part 1: Our Housewarming Cookie Exchange
On Friday, I announced that we were about to embark on a major milestone as a married couple: our first housewarming. As we all begin our last work week before Christmas, I am delighted to share with you that the housewarming was a major success and more importantly, a ton of fun. I write this from a house that somehow fit 30 people and something like 300 cookies! There's probably powdered sugar still wandering in the air as I type.
We had such a good time- I'd like to share it with you all week long!
- Today, I'll give you a partial tour of our house and our sweet party set-up. (Full house tour coming in January!)
- Wednesday, I'll share with you the fun of the evening with our guests, including how our cookie-themed activity went and some free printables for you to host your own party!
- And the most delicious for last, Friday, will bring you not one, but TWO recipes for Cookie Dough Dip and some amazing crock-pot Hot Cocoa!
You won't want to miss a beat so be sure to subscribe to daily posts if you want to get the updates delivered straight to your inbox. It's going to be some crazy goodness.
Now without further adieu, let me introduce you to the little abode we call our sweet first home together and how we set it up for our first big party.
First- what door isn't complete without a cookie welcome message? (aka I didn't have time to pull together my awesome idea for a wreath) Here's our front door and living room, complete with our Christmas tree (my very first since Gus is Catholic and I'm Jewish).
From the opposite of the room, you can see we embraced our inner cookie monster with our ode to "Om Nom Nom." All the printables you see in this post will be available to download from the blog Wednesday so be sure to scope it out.
Since our guests were bringing the delicious cookies, we focused on efforts on other key holiday elements like bottled milk (Target Vanilla Caramel bottles, emptied and repurposed), spiced cider, cookie dough dip, and even a Hot Cocoa Bar!
When our guests and their cookies arrived, we were ready- complete with labels for everyone so we could all know exactly what deliciousness we were sampling and who to thank. We were floored by everyone's creativity! No two batches were alike really. Some of the great flavors included:
- Nutella with Sea Salt
- Pink Lemonade Cookies
- Mexican Hot Chocolate with Dulce De Leche Glaze
- Gluten-free Chocolate Chip with Andes Mint
- Oatmeal White Chocolate Cranberry
Now, so many cookies- what to do when it's time to go? For this, we hosted a "Design Your Own Cookie Box" station. Using a nightstand, some gable boxes, and some permanent markers and stickers - we had a fun activity for our guests of all ages.
Once they had their box ready, the real awesomeness began when our guests picked out a dozen or more of cookies to try and take home. I got many a text today indicating people were eating cookies for breakfast. I'm somehow both proud and somewhat not proud of myself at the same time for contributing to such behavior.
If you like the station, check back on Wednesday to check out custom free printable stickers and some of the crazy designs our friends put together - everything from Christmas Lights to a full-scale reinterpretation of The Hobbit.
So, how'd we do? Hope you enjoyed this overview of our adventure. Come back on Wednesday for printables and the fun of decorating boxes and Friday for how to make that nom cookie dough dip and some amazingly easy Crock-Pot Hot Cocoa.
I'll leave you with our little party mantra. Nothing like some words of wisdom from the cookie expert himself.
