Giving Back Holiday Party

My favorite thing about the holidays is buying gifts for others and seeing their reaction as they open them.  Phil and I feel so fortunate to have our own home and make enough money to pay the bills each month.  Being back in Detroit, we see poverty everyday.  From the homeless war veteran collecting donations outside of the Jimmy Johns downtown to the family at the grocery store counting food stamps.  It is all too clear that we are lucky and that other people need help.

There are often negative stigmas around those in need.  They are going to use the money on booze or since they got themselves into the situation that they should get themselves out, to name a few.  I've seen my own family and friends go from extremely comfortable lives to living pay check to pay check.  It can happen to the most ambitious of people, and I truly feel that we need to help those in need as a community.  Not just in times of disaster, but all year round.

Phil and I decided to adopt a family of four for Christmas this year.  We knew we could not give them a special Christmas by ourselves, so we decided to host a Giving Back Holiday Party to collect donations.

We set up another tree in the basement to collect our friends donations.  We also had a box wrapped in paper to collect donations.  Everyone was so generous!  The family we adopted is going to have an amazing Christmas!

Apologies for the photo!  I did not have time to take pictures before my guests arrived.  We prepared a variety of appetizers:

• Cheese platter with a variety of cheeses from Trader Joe's
• Baked Brie (my mom's recipe - I'll post soon...unreal)
• Mini hot dogs with a variety of mustard and ketchup
• Santa's chex mix (rice chex, pretzels, marshmallows, peanuts, cranberries drizzled with white chocolate and mixed together)  It was a hit!
• Veggie platter with a dill yogurt dip from Trader Joe's
• Pulled pork bites (a play on this recipe)

My sister and I decorated sugar cookies and my mom sent over some of her delicious cookies for my sweets station.  Yummy!!

I made a citrus punch with Pear Cinnamon juice from Trader Joe's, orange juice, club soda, orange slices, and rum.  It went very quickly!

The party was a huge success!  We were able to see a lot of our close friends that were in town from Chicago, DC, and Detroit.  And we were able to collect enough donations to give our adopted family a great Christmas.  I can't wait to deliver the gifts and meet the family!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

What do you do to give back around the holidays?  What are your favorite holiday appetizers?

-xoxo-
Kaylin