Tinsel, toasts and touchdowns!

It's been a festive football season around here for sure!  We decided to host our annual holiday party a bit differently this time around..... My husband is a die-hard Chicago Bears fan (being from the Chicago area) and my family has been Dallas Cowboys fans my whole life, even long before I lived in Dallas for a few years.  Needless to say when our two teams play we become a house divided.  So, we choose to make a Monday night football game with our teams battling our holiday party and hosted a group of 30 friends and family to help us root on our teams and enjoy some Texas and Chicago style deliciousness! 

 

Check it out!!!

 

I filled some homemade cannoli's and I also made some football themed chocolate strawberries - these were a bit hard to keep from getting melty in our Florida heat- but they sure were good! 

 

The biggest hit of the night were the Ditka Dogs with all of the Chicago fixings of course including that bright neon green relish!! 

 

If you don't know how to make a "proper" Chicago Dog- check this out!

 I got a great idea from pinterest to use yellow knapkins as penalty flags..... I certainly threw a heck of a lot of these around that evening..... but I digress.... check out my pinterest board where I got lots of ideas for the party décor & food here. 

We also trimmed our tree with our friends and kept the holiday spirit alive!  Our friend Gerardo Luna took these great photos of me in action trimming the tree and sporting my Emmitt Smith Jersey and Cowboys Santa hat!  You can see more of Gerardo's awesome work on his website at www.gerardolunaphotographs.com

 We gave out quarterly prizes in a football pool - little splits of bubbly to keep things lively.  Gerardo took this great shot also -he and his wife ended up winning two of the quarters and had a blast! 

 

We also decorated 2 additional trees in our foyer, one for each team

I even got those little car stickers for each team family member up on some windows.

 It seemed like we had more football decorations than Christmas! 

 

 

Then there was more food...... a chili bar, pulled pork, deep dish Chicago pizza from Cappy's (which is awesome by the way), sausages, if it had anything to do with Dallas or Chicago we had it!! 

 

And then some.....

Cannoli Dip

 Red Velvet Cheesecake Dip - check out the recipe here!

 

Cowboy Fondue

 I made these adorable cupcakes with white stars on half and teddy grahams on the other half! 

 

It truly was a fun night.... even if the Cowboys did lose - all of our loved ones won in the end!  Our friend Gerardo took this run shot of me with my friends Susan and Melissa - who did their best to support both teams ;)

 

This time of the year it is truly about spending time with people you care about and who care about you.  It doesn't hurt to have some good natured competition and some fun food to share.  I think I'm just getting warmed up for the superbowl....... ;)