The holidays mean gathering to celebrate the spirit of the season with neighbors, family, and friends! Oh what a beautiful evening of caroling, sipping champagne, and reveling! 

This year I wanted to take the time to soak in every bit of the holiday season. During a time of year that seems to zoom by, I thought it was important to carve out a night for celebrating with neighbors and friends. So we pulled out the best champagne & caviar, our old French bar, and the carol books for a holiday block party! 

It all started with the rearranging of my living room - I wanted to create the feeling of a classic piano bar. We sanded our old French bar down to its original light oak and centered it in the room along with the piano. The two key ingredients for our affair which set the stage for the evening! 

Holiday parties seem to give great cause to dress up; however, we had quite a wonderful reason to dress in our holiday best as we celebrated our 5th Street neighbor's recent engagement. Our guest of honor, Bill, donned a tux, and the rest of us followed suit for quite the festive holiday soireé. 

Champagne & caviar were just as important as the piano and bar! We were lucky enough to have my sister, Katie, and her husband, Matthew, source five different true champagnes for us to enjoy at the party. My favorite was a rosé from Canard-Duchêne, yeasty with lots of red fruit aromas - plus only $35/bottle! I like to enjoy my caviar fuss free simply served with creme fresh on lightly toasted beignet bites, paired with delicious smoked salmon, it was the perfect accompaniment to the wonderful champagne. 

In an attempt to use up some of the pomegranates and lemons the farm has been producing this season, we created a mocktail for the kids and cocktail for the adults using our fresh produce! We squeezed lemons and pomegranates for a fizzy alcohol-free pomade and added a pomegranate seed twist to the classic French 75! 

After enjoying a few cocktails and a helping of caviar, we opened our songbooks and began to carol. What a special memory I will never forget! Tyge kicked things off with Rudolph on the piano, and things only got better from there. Tyge's piano teacher took over and we sang well into the evening. Many of us have been touched by loss this season, so we were honored to dedicate songs to those that are no longer with us. We dedicated Silent Night to those we have lost in our neighborhood, and Oh What a Wonderful World was gifted to Bill and Jane, our newly engaged guests of honor. It was an emotional moment that was beautiful to experience all together. 

I am so very happy that we called our neighbors on 5th Street together along with some of our dearest friends to celebrate the holiday season; I am grateful for the love and friendship that we share with one another. I wish you and your family a very merry Christmas and happy holiday season as we welcome a new year, may it be filled with peace, love, and joy. 

photos by Norma I. Quintana & Michelle Lacy