My Favorite Things

This past Monday, I hosted a My Favorite Things party designed around The Sound of Music. I took the lyrics of the song and tried to incorporate them into as many of the party details as possible.  We had a great time and food was yummy!  This would be such a cute theme for a birthday party or any gathering with a gift exchange.

Invite:  I designed the invite on PhotoShop using an image of Julie Andrews I found on Google.  I asked each guest to try to wear white with blue ribbons to match the lyrics of the song.  For the gift exchange, each guest was asked to purchase 3 of their favorite item.  I set a low price limit so it didn't get too crazy.

Entry Decor:  For my entry door, I made a giant door covering and attempted to make it look like the mountains/poppy fields from The Sound of Music.  I cut up tissue paper and construction paper for all parts of it.  My kiddos were excited to help make the cotton ball clouds.

Table Decor: I set the table with a white tablecloth and yellow napkins.  As a centerpiece, I placed items from the first verse of "My Favorite Things".  This included roses from my garden that I sprinkled water on to look like raindrops, a kitten stuffed animal that had whiskers, a copper kettle, mittens, and a brown paper package.  I didn't have a copper kettle and they were SUPER expensive online, so I just found a white kettle from Goodwill and then sprayed it with copper spray paint.  I included a card with the verse on it in case guests didn't know the song.  I borrowed a black wooden music note from my dad to add to the centerpiece.  I also included a few items from the second verse of the song.  I hung snowflakes from the ceiling and placed sleigh bells down the center of the table.

I had a hard time deciding what to do for a place card, but I finally decided on taking the movie poster and replacing Julie Andrews' face with each of my guest's. As I am not an expert at Photoshop, so some of them were pretty funny with the facial color vs. neck color.  It made for some good laughs.

To hold the silverware, I made blue mittens out of felt and yarn.  Easy to make and great for a winter party.

I designed simple wine labels to go with the theme..."one" of my favorite things and "another one" of my favorite things!  The sheet music of "My Favorite Things" and the glasses were images I found online.

For wine charms, I pulled out the various items mentioned in the song, and found images of each online. Not super creative, but the best I could do in my last minute efforts.

Menu: The song only mentions two specific food items, but I wanted to include a green salad with the dinner. I kept looking at the lyrics to see what I could adapt to go in a green salad, and I came up with snowflakes cut out of cheese.  I bought a mini snowflake cookie cutter at a local cake shop and sliced Monterrey Jack cheese thin enough to use.  The salad also had tomatoes, cucumber, croutons, and walnuts.

For the main dish, I served Schnitzel with Noodles. I had never made this before, but it was delicious especially with the lemon juice. There are recipes for both chicken and pork.  I think one is Austrian and one is German?  I choose to use boneless pork chops.  The noodles are just egg noodles that I then added butter, garlic, and peas. This is a delicious dish, and it of course is mentioned in the song.  Just keep in mind that it is prepared on the stove top right before serving.  It can't be made ahead or it will get soggy.

For dessert, I served the other food item mentioned in the song, warm apple strudels.  Again, this is a dish you have to put together during the party in order for it be warm and not mushy. I made the filling before the party started, but I had to do the puff pastry and the baking right before serving.  The recipe I used for this I found here. I chose this recipe because it looked easy and because it didn't have raisins.  Many of the strudel recipes I found had raisins, and I am not a big fan of cooked raisins, so I avoided those.  That may make it not "authentic Austrian", but to me it made it "edible"!

Party Activity:  The super fun aspect of this monthly dinner was the My Favorite Things gift exchange.  On the invitation, I asked guests to purchase 3 of their favorite item to bring to the party.  For example, one of my favorite movies is Pride and Prejudice and I am a popcorn and Gobstopper junkie, so I put together 3 of these packages.  We put all the guest's names in a pot and each guest drew three names, talked about their favorite thing, and then gave the 3 guests whatever it was.  Some of the items people brought were Starbucks cards, the ingredients to make a Moscow Mule drink, comfy socks, a favorite necklace, etc.

To take their goodies home in, I made these favors bags with another verse from the song.

We had a lot of fun at this party, and I am excited to enjoy/try out the goodies I got in the gift exchange.