Celebration!

Firstly, might I congratulate myself on my ONE HUNDREDTH POST!  Were I a celebrity, this would be the part where all my famous friends come out and we do an entire episode recapping our favoirte moments and showing how important we are.  I felt that was too pretensious, however, so decided to keep my ONE HUNDREDTH POST a low-key affair.

As a way of thanking you, my five loyal readers (plus the spammers in Malaysia), I will instead dedicate this post to another celebratory topic: informing you how to prepare a feast for The Perfect Holiday Potluck Open House . . . Toxic Housewife-style.

Introduction:  Bill the event as a potluck.  Then spend the next week worrying that no one will bring food.  So prepare a ham, some rolls, two types of cookies, one type of candy, and several drinks.

1)  Let your husband take care of preparing the ham.  It comes out perfectly.

2)  As you've managed to repeatedly make delicious Honey Whole Wheat Bread without any problems, decide -- with a naive air of self-confidence -- to make as-yet-unattempted Parker House Rolls from scratch.

Double the recipe.

Allow the first batch to over-rise, therfore fall, therefore come out as square biscuits instead of light rolls.

Allow the milk mixture in the second batch to heat too high, therefore killing the yeast, therefore not allowing the rolls to rise at all, resulting in hard lumps.

After the conclusion of your Perfect Holiday Potluck Open House, throw most of the biscuits and lumps out to your chickens.

2)  Spend two days making Stained Glass Cookies.  Lament the fact that yours are not nearly as pretty as the cookbook's.  In fact, the camels almost look as if they've been shot.

Spend another day making Ultimate Oatmeal Cookies.  Stand by, aghast, as Mr. C drops the entire tin of freshly-baked cookies on the kitchen floor.  Pick them up, brush them off, serve them at your party and hope none in attendance read this post.

3)  Attempt to make Peppermint Bark.  Burn a little bit of the dark chocolate in the microwave as you're attempting to melt it.  Scoop out the burned section, finish melting in the microwave, and spread dark chocolate on a cookie sheet lined with parchmnet paper.

Melt vanilla chips in the microwave.  Burn the entire batch.  Scrounge around the back of your cupboard and find a little more vanilla chips and half a bag of white chocolate chips.  Combine the two in a double boiler and melt over the stove, as you were supposed to do in the first place.

Refuse to let the white chocolate mixture cool enough before you spread in on top of the dark chocolate sheet, resulting in a slightly-marbled candy instead of two clean layers.

Spend twenty minutes meticulously unwrapping peppermint candy from the bulk aisle of your local discount food store.  Crush candy in a grinder.  Realize the resulting powder is much too fine; throw it all away.

Spend another twenty minutes meticulously unwrapping peppermint candy from the bulk aisle of your local discount food store.  (Pat yourself on the back for buying WAAAYY too much candy in the first place)  Place candy in a thick plastic bag: ram with a hammer for five minutes to break candy into small chunks whilst simultaneously ignoring your toddler screaming from the next room because he can't hear Bob the Builder.  Sprinkle peppermint chunks over chocolate.

Eat most of the Peppermint Bark long before your party.

4)  Allow Bee to talk you into serving eggnog.  Accompany him to the organics-only grocery boutique the day before to get some.  Realize it would cost over $20 to get two half-gallons.

Accompany Bee to the grocery store down the street.  Watch as he freaks out realizing how much high fructose corn syrup is used to make commonly-produced eggnog.

Watch Bee's face light up as he tastes a sample of homemade eggnog being handed out by store personnel.  Allow Bee to talk you into making homemade eggnog with the recipe so conveniently provided.  After all, you have plenty of eggs at home, and you just bought a HUGE carton of cream!

Double the recipe to make half a gallon.  Spend the evening separating eggs, cooking cream, and whipping whites.  Realize the egg whites will be served uncooked.  Gag just a little (because, yes, you might eat nearly an entire batch of raw cookie dough, but you draw the line somewhere).

The next day, watch Bee grimace as he samples the frothy mixture.  Watch Bee try to fix it, with little success.  Watch as most of your company politely accepts shots of the stuff, only to leave most of their glasses un-drunk by the end of the evening.

Throw out just under half a gallon.

Epilogue:  Be filled with Christmas spirit as you realize that, despite your culinary disasters, your friends brought an appropriate amount of delicious food to share, only one person brought a bag of chips, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

From my disfunctional home to yours,

Happy Holidays!