How to feed a hungry crowd at Christmas

 

 I'm a big proponent of planning ahead for any holiday, occasion or visit.  I'm always looking for ways to plan better and more intelligently.  

One of my favorite bloggers is Yvonne at Stonegable, and I have saved a ton of her ideas to share with you all.  Her post How to Feed a Hungry Crowd at Christmas is worth its weight in gold and could be easily adapted to feeding a crowd any time of year, especially when one has out-of-town guests staying in the home or nearby.  I intend to use some of Yvonne's ideas when we have family visiting for two weeks in August.  I think it could simplify things nicely.

I encourage you to read Yvonne's post for yourself, but I will share a few of her ideas that I gleaned.  A coffee bar to start the day, along with some pre-breakfast snacks and nibbles, sounds like a really good idea.  In a perfect world, one could adapt that idea for summer by making it a smoothie bar, but I don't have the space, the blender, or the wherewithal for that, so I would just use our existing coffee bar with its k-cups for coffee, hot chocolate, and spiced cider.  I can also make sure I have plenty of ice cubes prepared and ready for making any of these beverages iced.

This idea might work out very well during the family visit in that the snacks could tide us over till lunch, allowing us to bypass an actual breakfast on days we are headed to the beach or a car trip to a touristy destination.

For days at home when we might have a regular breakfast, we could make it a hearty brunch with meat, eggs, and potatoes, etc.  Then skip lunch and serve a midafternoon appetizer spread, maybe with iced tea or lemonade.

Yvonne suggests that Christmas supper be a meal in a bowl, maybe with sourdough bread on the side.  So for summer, I am thinking main-dish salads like macaroni with tuna, chicken salad, chef's salad, etc.  And also with sourdough bread on the side.  If we wanted dessert, it could be a cookie tray (my hubby is already baking and freezing cookies and fudge for the family's visit) and possibly some good ice cream.

Wow, I am so impressed by how this post has helped me to come up with some great ideas for our family's August visit.  I will talk these thoughts over with my local daughter, and we'll come up with some potential menus.

Hope Yvonne's ideas are useful to you as well!