hosting christmas dinner!

this year we volunteered to host christmas dinner. most of my family works retail and has no energy left over for cooking, so our family tradition had become eating soup and salad on christmas. it was yummy homemade soup and salad, but still not the amazing christmas feast that most families have. i don't work retail and i love to cook, so we are taking on the big task of hosting and cooking. and of course i'm tackling a few things that i've never made before, so that should be interesting... thankfully we're doing a bit of a potluck, but most of it is on my shoulders. here's the menu:

starters:

brie and pears with a few loaves of homemade pain d'epi (wheat stalk bread)

lollipop chicken wings  from our kookoolan chickens

veggies and dip - from aunt jenny

main course:

cured ham with a dried cherry and stout sauce with brown sugar and allspice - this is also from kookoolan. i'm excited to try their ham!

kale with bacon

green salad - from mom

rosemary potatoes - from aunt jenny

dessert:

chocolate buche de noel with a peppermint mascarpone filling covered with ganache and meringue mushrooms - based on this and this

christmas sugar cookies glazed with royal icing

boozy hot chocolate

wine

i made a timeline and i'm already behind. today (it's already 1:30 in the afternoon) i'm going to make the cookie dough, make the meringue mushrooms (something i've never done), and then hopefully cut out and bake the cookies so we can decorate them tomorrow. wish me luck!