Preparing for My Holiday Party 2019
The holiday season is one of my favorite times to entertain.
This year, I hosted a large holiday party at my Bedford, New York farm. Preparing for these special gatherings takes a lot of effort, a lot of time, and a lot of advanced planning - it was "all hands on deck." In the weeks leading up to the party, everyone at the farm was busy, inside and out - cleaning every room of every house, hanging outdoor wreaths, ornaments and lights, and of course, filling my home with lots of festive decorations. I also put my new Prepline countertop dough sheeter from Kitchenall to work - we made more than 2500 cookies!
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- I invited more than 200 guests to my holiday party. Out on my porch, I used a long planter to store some of the glasses for the bar. It worked perfectly.
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- Silver punch bowls were taken out and washed for my eggnog. I make batches and batches of my special eggnog every year – everyone loves it, so I always make sure there’s enough to go around.
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- Plates are gathered and stacked on my Brown Room dining table. Whenever preparing for a large party, do as much as you can ahead of time, so there is less scrambling the morning of the event.
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- Holiday wreaths are hung on every window in my servery. Whenever I entertain, I like to use this area for serving drinks.
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- I always fill my home with lots of cheerful holiday decorations – the more the merrier. I like to include a mix of old favorites as well as new, including items from craft projects featured on my television shows, Facebook LIVE broadcasts, and other media appearances. My housekeepers and I work together to decorate each room. I decide the colors and the theme each room will have and then Enma and Sanu pull all the decorations out from storage.
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- I organize my ornaments by color and type, so they’re easy to find the following season. Here is a bin of all silver ornaments for use in my Brown Room.
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- Fernando is outside my Tenant House hanging ornaments – giant silvered-glass kugels – all from Martha by Mail, the mail-order catalog business we ran from 1996 through 2004. Its focus was to provide consumers with a way to buy some of the delightful items shown in the pages of “Martha Stewart Living” magazine. These ornaments were so well made – they will last years and years.
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- I love how these kugels look on the Camperdown Elms, Ulmus ‘Camperdownii’, outside my Winter House kitchen. Fernando carefully places each one strategically on the tree using wire – none of the ornaments should bang or touch each other.
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- I hang shooting stars on the outside of several buildings every year here at the farm.
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- Here’s a shooting star on the outside of my blog studio. It will look so pretty at night.
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- My big sleigh is taken out of storage, dusted, and placed outside my Summer House for photos with Santa.
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- The gravel carriage roads are raked regularly, especially before any party, so they look neat and tidy. We attached four soft rakes to pieces of wood and hooked them up to the back of our Polaris ATV. The crew gets all four miles of carriage road raked pretty quickly.
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- I wanted gold trees in my Winter House Green Room. Here is Sanu “fluffing” up the branches of my gold tinsel tree from QVC. This tree comes pre-lit with 450 clear incandescent lights.
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- I was also very busy in my kitchen. I made several loaves of delicious bread.
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- And many cookie doughs. During the week leading up to the party, I would make two or three cookie doughs every night after work.
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- And, you may have seen this on my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48, but I gifted myself with this wonderful Prepline countertop dough sheeter from Kitchenall. It is a commercial size machine, so it took up almost the entire counter, but it saved us so much time.
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- The dough is placed on the conveyer belt and then passed through the machine – no rolling needed. It’s so amazing.
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- And when it is done, it is flattened to a pre-programmed thickness. We all love this dough sheeter – I am already thinking about all the pie dough it will make next Thanksgiving.
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- My napping French Bulldogs are so used to all the activity at the farm – they are not bothered at all.
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- And down at my Maple Avenue House, Jessie Damuck and Molly Wenk are making wreath cookies from my latest book, “Cookie perfection. These wreath cookies are covered with lemon glaze and then embellished with nuts, dragees, and candied ginger.
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- Here’s Fernando putting up a silver tinsel tree, also from my Collection at QVC. This tree measures six-and-a-half feet tall and 48-inches wide.
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- I love to incorporate natural elements whenever possible. These tree stumps make great Christmas tree stands.
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- Festive flannel shirts were ironed and hung for every member of the wait staff.
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- One night before the party, I also made bows to hang on the sconces in my Winter House. I used this beautiful antique four-inch wide ribbon from Germany.
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- The first thing I did was cut a length of ribbon.
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- At the center, I pleated the ribbon several times.
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- And then stapled it together with this vintage hand stapler.
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- Another piece was used to make the loops for the bow. I also cinched the center and stapled it together.
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- Finally, I stapled the loops to the long ends of the bow.
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- It looks so pretty here with the ornament and artificial glittered greenery.
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- I hope you’re all having a good time preparing for your holiday festivities. I will share more photos of the decorations and the party tomorrow.
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