4th Annual Girls Dirty Santa Party

It’s the party I look forward to every year!! I started having an all girls Dirty Santa party when we first moved into our new house 4 years ago and it has been one of my very favorite traditions.

The house is decorated, everyone is in the Christmas spirit, and we have the best time catching up and exchanging gifts!  It seems like each year the stakes get bigger and bigger for what gift you choose to bring.   We have everyone bring one wrapped gift with no tag.  We call it Dirty Santa only because there is a lot of stealing that goes along with the game, not because the gifts are actually “dirty.” 😂.  I always love seeing what everyone brings as their gifts.

We keep the drinks pretty simple.  I serve wine and champagne along with my very favorite Mrs. Holiday Punch!  This punch is always a big hit for everyone’s first drink when they arrive.  It has vodka, St. Germaine and champagne in it and definitely will sneak up on you.

I always like to put out a few appetizers to nibble on while we have cocktails.  I usually love doing a cheese board; but we had so much other stuff this year, I decided not to put one out.  We had Crab dip, Captain Rodney’s dip , and an artichoke cheesecake that I need to get the recipe for!

We had a beautiful cake from a local new bakery called Bluejays for those of you that live here.  They are located on Palafox St. and did an awesome job!

For dinner we served a Shrimp and Crabmeat Stuffed Eggplant.  Instead of individually stuffing each eggplant, we made it into a casserole.  It has been tradition for this party that the main dish has always been inspired by New Orleans.  So, this year we decided on this recipe.  We served it with a Pear and Pomegranate Salad, garlic bread and roasted vegetables.

I’m usually so good about always getting a group photo before the party is over, but I completely forgot!  My Mom is always my biggest helper for this party.  I couldn’t do it without her.  And my MIL took both kiddos for me this year so I didn’t have to worry about waking them up at the house, so that was a huge help this year too!

After dinner is served, we all sit around the living room to play Dirty Santa.  It is always a blast.  This was one of my favorite gifts that came this year and I had never seen before.  It is so handy and comes in a bunch of colors.  It’s called the Bogg Bag.   The beauty of it is that it’s waterproof of course, but that it also doesn’t tip over!!  It’s invented by a Mom and solves all of our problems with stuff spilling out of our bags all the time.  I also love that you can use it as a casserole carrier, beach bag or purchase the cooler insert to make it a cooler!  It’s perfect for any car ride!

I wrote out these Dirty Santa rules that we follow a few years ago and print them out for every party.  This way there is no confusion with how many times a gift can be stolen and how the game works!