Throwing a Fabulous 70th Birthday Party at the Last Minute

 I threw a 70th birthday party for my mom at rather the last minute.  Mid- December or so my sister texted me that since it was my mom's 70th this year we should do something to celebrate.  My husband and I were leaving on our cruise the weekend of her actual birthday so I offered to host something New Year's Eve.

That gave me about 2 or so weeks to prepare (thankfully I was all set for Christmas!).  I immediately hopped on Amazon and found some cute and pretty rose gold 70th birthday themed decorations and sent out some e-vites.

 Between my sister, my step-father, and I we all agreed it was best to keep the guest list to just family.  So I settled to working on the menu.  We have lots of new food allergies in our family that I tried to work around while also keeping some of my mom's favorites in mind. 

We settled on:

• smoked spiral ham and some plain smoked chicken (that my husband offered to cook on the smoker)
• a baked potato bar with bacon, cheese, chives, sour cream, and butter.
• steamed broccoli
• tossed salad with dressings on the side
• lemon tiramisu
• cookie tray

We had a few boxes of premade cookie dough I picked up from Alec' school fundraiser that same week we were party planning so I figured I cook up a couple of trays for those that couldn't or didn't want to eat the tiramisu.

The day of the party we decorated a bit. 

Everyone arrived on time and settled right in to play cards until the food was ready; they were having so much fun they pretty much played while they ate! 

She opened her gifts and then we had her dessert; after singing happy birthday, of course!