A Very Merry Un-Birthday to You!

When we got married, my Hubby and I were gifted some beautiful china. I really, really like it! We have several settings of it and it makes me happy to see it. However, I don't have any place to display it, or enough cupboard space to keep it, so the china lives in the original boxes in our basement.

We have been married for about 3 years now and we have used this beautiful china only once. That seems silly to me, so I set off thinking up an occasion to bring out the china. Thanksgiving is spent away, Christmas we're out of town.. Halloween seems incongruous with using china and Easter is all the way next Spring!
It was clear I was going to have to construct an occasion - an Un-Birthday Party!

Caught up in the silliness of the event, I decided to go all out. Since we were using china we would need all the trimmings of a romantic dinner: tablecloth, candle sticks and candles, matching silverware and fancy cups. All that was missing was some kind of romantic decoration...

On Etsy (where I spend a great deal of time) it seems to be trending to have vintage paper used in creating decorations (like this, or this, or this). This tending was the inspiration for my romantic decorations.. I would make a heart garland with vintage paper! I had a heart shaped paper punch, so all I needed was some vintage paper.

I set off to the book section of my local thrift shop. While there, I came across a romance novel from 1978.. yellowed pages, plus it's older than I am! And the thought of our romantic dinner decorations of hearts being punched from a romance novel made me laugh more than a little. And thus it was.

To go along with all the romantic trimmings, we had a most scrumptious romantic 5-course meal, plus dessert. It was super fun!

To start off, we had sparkling cider with our fancy cups:

Then we had salad:

Followed by artichokes with pesto and butter:

Next up we had mini twice-baked potatoes:

For the main course, we had marinated t-bone steaks with cheesy biscuits (like those from Red Lobster):

Then, to cleanse the palate, we had hot, spiced cider:

Followed by toffee ice cream sundaes:

(with amazing gourmet toffee from here):

Yu-huh-mmy!! It was a very merry and romantic evening!