A Festivus for the Rest of Us!

'Tis the season for holiday festivities! 

Yes, this is part of my holiday decor

Every year, Mr. Social and I host a Festivus party, and this year we added a little 2012/end of the world/zombieapocalypse spin to it. In addition to the traditional ugly sweaters, we encouraged our guests to come prepared for the zombie apocalypse. But before I show off the fabulous people who came to the party dressed in theme appropriate attire, let me show off some of the goodies I made!

The first batch of cookies I baked were Chocolate Cardamom Macadamia Nut Cookies. Mmmmmmm. I think I accidentally doubled the amount of chocolate chips in the recipe, probably because I bought them at the bulk store rather than in a package from the grocery store. So I eyeballed it to guess I got the right amount. You can never have too much chocolate, right? I think that if I make these again, I'll use the same amount of chocolate, again, but I'll add a little more cardamom and not toast the macadamia nuts before adding them to the batter. But all in all, they were nummy!

For the next batch of cookies, I tried out a recipe I found on Pinterest, Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies. These were touted as being like mint chocolate chip ice cream in a cookie, and well, it's true! If you're a lover of mint chocolate chip, I highly recommend these (myself, I'll only make them for parties as after one of these I've hit my max capacity for mint). The guests seemed to love these though, as there were only 6 left at the end of the night!

Now, just because it's the holidays it doesn't mean we should be overlooking birthdays! I also whipped up a birthday cake for my friend CC, who sadly couldn't make it to the Festivus festivities as she wasn't feeling well (I suspect a few too many wobbly-pops the night before...). But, as it turned out, it was another revelers birthday as well so the cake got to fulfill its destiny...

YAY!

I had planned on making a bunch more stuff for the party, and got a little stressed out that I didn't have time for it. However, I really didn't need to make anything else, as the stuff that people brought with them to share had the table groaning under the weight!

To add a little incentive to guests to come wearing ugly sweaters/zombie gear/holiday appropriate attire, I offered up a prize for the best outfit. The winner was decided by popular vote, and I gotta say, it was hard to choose this year!

Ultimately, it was determined that J in her ugly sweater/super duper patterned skirt was the winner of the giant inappropriate stocking (handmade by me of course)

And the runner up got a kiss from me :)

Apparently I was walking around with lipstick on my face all night. Hooray for mistletoe!

All in all it was a fantastic evening, and I'm excited to see what next year's festivities hold! (provided the world doesn't come to an end on the 21st!)