Happy Thursday, friends! I’m feeling very festive tonight, as we had our Secret Santa party at work. Secret Santas are so fun, and I had a great one this year. Not sneaky, but great. I got a lot of coffee and tea and three new mugs. Niiice.

Like most people, we’ve got several parties on the calendar this month. We hosted an Ugly Sweater party last weekend,  had this Secret Santa party today, and have two more parties next week. And of course, most of those parties are full of delicious…ly bad for us food.  The nice thing about hosting your own party is that you can make sure that there are plenty of healthy options (and some not so healthy. ‘Tis the season, and all that.)

Here are some links to the healthy things I served last weekend. All were tasty, and none were challenging. I fully intended to take pictures of the food once it was on the table and looking pretty, but naturally, I was rushing right up to the last second to get stuff done before people started showing up. But that’s ok; I stole all the pictures below from the original recipes, and they’re way prettier than mine would have been anyhow.

If you’re hosting a party or simply bringing a dish to one, I hope these recipes give you some inspiration!

• Grinch kabobs.
  
  You just get the link to the picture on Pinterest, because it doesn’t go anywhere else. But they’re grapes, bananas, strawberries, and mini marshmallows. I don’t think you really need a recipe.
• Cinnamon butter pecan sweet potato bites.
  
  These dudes were yummy, but I recommend that you roast the potatoes at 375 or so instead of 425, or do it for less than 20 minutes. Some of mine got too crispy. Also, if you use a mandolin to slice the sweet potatoes, and you can’t find the guard, take the extra 30 seconds to dig through the drawer and find it so that you don’t spend ten minutes bandaging your cut and disinfecting the mandolin and cutting board after you cut yourself. Not speaking from experience or anything…
• Dates with olive oil and sea salt.
  
  Holy cow, this were amazing. And so easy. I don’t think I’ll ever eat another date that hasn’t been sauteed in oil and sprinkled with salt. Yummo.
• Tuna-stuffed tomatoes. 
  
  Honestly, I did not follow this recipe at all. I just saw the picture on Pinterest and thought it was cute. I just mixed tuna with pre-made guacamole, then stuffed it in tomatoes. Easy, cute, and yummy.
• Paleo cocktail meatballs.
  
  Fun fact: I’m terrible at following recipes.  I didn’t follow this one very closely, either. And I used turkey. But they were good, even with all my substitutions, and I’m sure the original is good, too.
• I also chopped up a bunch of different veggies — red and green bell peppers, carrots, celery, broccoli, sugar snap peas — and set them out with store-bought hummus. You can’t go wrong with veggies.
• And because it was a holiday party, I made these festive cookies
  
  and some Rocky Road brownies (recipe from a The Chocolate Lover’s Cookbook. I don’t want to post it here because of copyrights, but it was basically sugar, butter, and chocolate, with marshmallows on top.)

 

What’s your go-to holiday party dish?

Any fun parties on your docket? Tell me about them! I always wish that we had a fancy party to go to, but teachers don’t really get those.