Neighborhood Christmas party

As if our day wasn't long enough, we also had a neighborhood Christmas party to attend. The couple lives up the street and their granddaughter is TC's classmate at school. We didn't attend their shindig last year so we decided to go this year. This couple really knows how to throw a themed party. The wife went all out with her decorations. They were everywhere! She was also quite creative. She used calamansis from her neighbor's yard to make these snowmen! What a great idea!

Everyone had to bring a hot or cold dish. It was like the United Nations potluck. There was Chicken Kelaguen representing Guam (but most likely ordered from Yokozuna's!):

Mexican Beef Tamales :

One of her Filipino neighbors brought Crispy Salt & Pepper Chicken Wings (she ordered it from the Mandarin place on Telegraph Canyon Rd). These went quickly!

Another Japanese neighbor and her mother brought their nation's version of Beef Stew. We really liked this. The meat was so thinly sliced and the sauce was flavorful. I wished they had white rice to go with this though.

There was a fountain spouting a mixture of 7-up and grenadine syrup:

There was also some sort of curry croquette. We weren't sure who brought this or what country it might have been from, but...

I didn' really like how they tasted. There was a tiny hint of curry but they were so fried up that it was hard to tell what you were eating.

I think people forgot about this ham - it was on the stove next to the Japanese beef stew. Most of the food was on the kitchen island while these were on the stovetop.

I wish I knew the name of this dish, but her neighbor is Indonesian while the husband is Chinese. She said it was Chicken with Rice Wine and that it is good to eat while you are nursing a baby or are pregnant. I'm neither and I thought it was quite delicious - so much so that we ended up taking leftovers home!

My cheap ass offering, Chicken Salad. Actually, one guy liked it so much, he got thirds. This is canned chicken with canned water chestnuts (chopped) with canned pineapple chunks and canned mandarin oranges. Yes, four items are from cans! The rest of the ingredients are from your pantry - mayonnaise, soy sauce,curry power, black pepper. The fresh items are chopped celery and chopped green onions. You can substitute one of the fruits with sliced red grapes or sliced green apple. It's a sweet chicken salad. The crunch comes from the celery and the water chestnuts but you could also add chopped almonds to this. Anyways...that's what I made and brought.
Santa's here:

Someone brought edamame and fried lotus root much to my delight:

The lotus root cross section:The chocolate fountain - the chocolate was starting to get all blobby. They had all kinds of dippers like pretzels, chips, marshmallows and sliced fruits.

One last look at the calamansi snowman display.