Healthy, happy New Year

Plans. Oh, boy, did I have them. Lemon cheesecake bars, my mom’s cheese ball, spinach-artichoke dip. There were about a million and one things I thought about bringing to the New Year’s Eve get-together at my friend’s house. So when I asked him what I could add to the buffet, I was a bit taken aback by his answer.

“Bring stuff you’ll want to eat.”

Well, of course, I’d want to eat lemon cheesecake bars and crackers smeared with cheesy goodness and chips dripping with dip. But that’s not what he meant. He was telling me to bring foods that I would not feel guilty about eating.

Talk about a smack in the face. Here I am fretting about holiday sins and yet I’m planning to bring the temptations. Why would I want to sabotage me?

I knew I didn’t want to set myself up for bad decisions, and I quickly made a game plan to switch up my offerings. Veggies with hummus, fruit with “Healthified” Fluffy Orange Fruit Dip and baked potato skins (I had to have something for the boys).

Knowing that even with my healthy additions that there’d still be quite the spread, I also went in with a game plan. A small dinner of homemade French onion soup and half a grilled cheese, heavy on the tomato. Dinner would be a snack, party snacks would be a dinner.

And a dinner they were, as I was more than right when predicting my friend’s offerings.

 

We had deviled eggs (my fave!), pulled pork, stuffed mushrooms, an assortment of cheeses, carrot cake cookies (the bomb!), petit fours and the nastiest pickles on the planet, Horesradish Slices.

I started off slow, making sure to get a bite of everything I wanted as not to feel deprived.

And then it was game on. Literally.

We busted out the Scrabble board, watching Univision in the background (a five-year tradition now) and put on our competitive faces. I was out to win.

Too bad my crapload of letters got in the way.

 

I always had the dern “V”!

Thankfully, or not so thankfully depending on how you like to look at things, the boys were drinking and I was not as DD. Booze makes it very difficult to play.

Just ask Mark.

So, yeah. I won two games – the last by a margin of 140 points. And because I was so into beating the boys, I only went back once twice for a deviled egg and cheese on a cracker.

What did you do for New Year’s?