My First Real Dinner Party

Since we live so far from our friends and family, when we see them, we have them over to visit and stay for days.  So we've hosted a lot of visitors in the past, but never had a real adult dinner where you invite someone over to the house just for dinner and they bring wine and the whole shebang.  I guess that makes tonight's dinner my first real dinner "party" if you can even call it a party since it was just us and our neighbor couple.  We had invited them for Christmas Eve dinner because they are just so wonderful!  Initially they wanted to swing by real quick to give Jaden his gift, but I was so grateful for all the love they show J and how sweet and wonderful they are to us that I wanted to make dinner for them.  I didn't imagine they would buy him a gift, so super sweet of them!  When I gave birth to J, they even got us a baby gift and I had never even met them before that!  Hubby met them a few times when we were renovating because we found that our shower in the master bath would leak down to their master bath whenever we turned the water on so we had to get it fixed.

Anyhow, I debated a LONG time about what to serve them.  I was so super nervous! LOL!! I decided be a little more realistic about how much time I actually have to make food since J is super mobile now and takes only one afternoon nap, leaving me hardly any time to do stuff. 

The menu:

Fried butterfly shrimp

Miso Soup (instant)

California Rolls (store-bought)

Japchae

Kalbi

Oreo Truffles &Cupcakes for dessert (cupcakes from the market)

The oreo truffles I made! I sprinkled crushed candy canes on top.  They were yummy but soooo sweet! Especially the chocolate shell.  Our guests loved them, though, and took them all home to freeze!

All in all the dinner was a success and have agreed to meet at their place next time for dinner after the holidays.  I was super nervous about this dinner for some reason, probably because most of the people I've cooked for in the past were family and good friends we've known for a really long time that even if my dishes are a flop, we can all laugh and grab some Taco Bell.  My neighbors aren't picky or hard-to-please or difficult or anything like that, they are the best neighbors ever, but I was just nervous because I've never hosted a dinner before. ;)

Now I'm excited about opening all of my gifts tomorrow morning!

Merry Christmas, all!!