Sunday, July 26, 2009

Christmas in July

Saturday found us celebrating Christmas in July, courtesy of a themed BBQ hosted by Andrew's parents. As the poinsettia invitations explained, everyone was to come dressed in holiday colors, ready to celebrate Christmas on July 25 instead of December 25.


The mood was set from the moment we walked in the door - the pool was festively decorated with evergreen garlands and bows and the food table featured a poinsettia tablecloth:


A closer look at garland revealed homemade cinnamon ornaments - Andrew's cousin Kim (a teacher like Andrew's mom) explained that they're an easy project that she often does with her own students during the holidays:
What would Christmas be without a Christmas tree and presents for Andrew's younger cousins?
Madison's package revealed a blue straw:
While Meggie's package had a pink straw (by the way, how cute are these girls?)
To snack on as an appetizer, a cream cheese snowman:
And tons of regular BBQ food for dinner, including hot dogs, ribs, linguica, Andrew's sister Amanda's salad with homemade dressing and Andrew's dad Tom's famous beans:
After dinner comes dessert - Maddie and Meggie wistfully peered through the fence as we set up dessert:
Meggie told me that she couldn't wait to try the brownies and chocolate chip cookies that her Mom (Andrew's cousin Kim) made:


There were also Christmas-colored vanilla cupcakes, strawberry pie, peppermint ice cream pie and the dessert that I brought, a chocolate chip cookie cake:
A closer look at Charlotte's gingerbread men reveals swimsuits and flip-flops, a cute twist on the theme and the season:
This is a close-up of my dessert, which ended up looking more like a hamburger cake, as it was jokingly referred to - flavors were good but I don't think I would make it again:
The BBQ was so much fun that I think that this BBQ may become a yearly tradition. As one of my coworkers exclaimed when I told her about the theme, "Celebrating Christmas in July is a great idea! The regular holidays are so stressful that having it during the summer gives you time to relax and enjoy yourself." I completely agree!

3 comments:

Jen said...

How fun! I started making my Christmas gifts this weekend and I told Hubby it was like Christmas in July. He thought I was crazy.

On another note, we did a Boston Cupcake Crawl this weekend. Check out my blog for the results.

bcallegra said...

It was a lot of fun to celebrate Christmas during the summer (I've even spent Christmas in Hawaii and it doesn't compare)! I'm impressed that 1) you're making gifts (I'm assuming they're not baked!) and 2) you've started this early!

I love the fact that you did a cupcake crawl - I was inspired to do the same by a Boston.com article on the best cupcakes a couple months back, but still haven't gotten around to it.

Jen said...

Yep, I saw that Boston.com article after I started planning the cupcake crawl. It was a great resource.

The gifts I'm making take some time to brew, so I had to start them this early. I'm just glad I won't have much holiday shopping to do this year. We're giving everyone the same thing!