Christmas with friends

Photo copyright Bloom Creatives 2008. All Rights Reserved.

My husband and I are fortunate enough to be welcoming a dear friend into our home for Christmas. She arrives the afternoon of Christmas Eve and will be spending the long weekend with us. This is perfect timing because I have just discovered a wonderful blog called The Blushing Hostess Entertains, written by another old friend of mine with whom I recently reconnected on Facebook. (Isn't Facebook great sometimes?) Catherine, the writer, is someone I have long admired for her poise, success (both personal and professional) and warmth. I spent a memorable summer living with a mutual friend in the lovely town of Bedford, NY, and Catherine was always kind enough to at least pretend to turn a blind eye to my heathen ways. Her blog reminded me that my cloth napkins are all terribly stained and that I needed to purchase new ones right away. For shame! Now I have a nice stack of brand new, sparkling white cloth napkins, and hopefully a box full of the remainder of my wedding china on its way if I've guessed my mother's gift correctly. (Fingers crossed!)

Isn't it amazing how one changes through the years? I'm truly interested in napkins and dinnerware, new cookware, what to make for dinner, etc. I used to go to raves. Now, however, I am spending my Sunday evening carefully spreading anti-wrinkle serum under my eyes (perhaps I should have gone to fewer of those raves) and planning our Christmas menu.

I'm mainly looking at Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas brunch and Christmas dinner. The rest of the weekend will be more casual and of course will be planned, too, but those are the biggies.  Brunch I think will be bagels, cream cheese, lox, bacon, eggs, coffee, mimosas and fresh fruit.

Here are a few things I'm toying with for Christmas Eve:
A lovely white wine (will see what AJ's has in stock)
Crudite and toasted flatbread with fresh hummus (probably artichoke and red pepper)
My variation of Quiche au Frommage (using Jarlsberg and mozzarella, sauteed onion and bacon)
Baby spinach, pear and walnut salad
Dessert: Rum egg nog

Christmas dinner:
A lovely pinot noir
Rib roast with roasted garlic thyme sauce OR Roasted rack of lamb (my vote is for this, as I already have one in the freezer)
Creamed corn pudding (I made this for Thanksgiving and forgot to put it out, but the bit I tasted beforehand was delicious. Did not reheat well, so we'll have to eat it all. Also, just use frozen corn, for crying out loud.)
Lemon-thyme green beans
Popovers with cheese and herbs
Dessert - Malva pudding (a traditional Afrikaans dessert in honor of the South African heritage of the hubs),  substituting this vanilla custard sauce for the one in the pudding recipe
Asti Moscato