Not sure if you have all heard, but there is a new movie that was just released about robots and heros with laser swords that is rumored to be doing well in the box offices. Actually, the movie was released yesterday in France, and Air France had a promomotion going to take advantage of France's one-day lead on the US: buy a New York - Paris direct flight on December 16, Air France throws in a ticket to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens for free! So ingenious, those Frenchers.

We recently posted an idea for a low-key Star Wars themed party, but maybe, like Queer Martha, you really like things that are high-key. Maybe you want to go hard with your Star Wars party. Let me ask you something. Have you recently said to yourself, "Star Wars is being released around the holidays... is this a coincidence? Or is this a galactic conspiracy to inspire me to throw a Star Wars themed Christmas dinner?" If you have asked yourself that, well, friend, you are not alone.

As always, I am of the opinion that the invitation that you send in the mail to your guests (support the Post Office!) is the first part of the actual party. I designed this invite then printed it on silver shimmery paper. I am also of the opinion that you can never go wrong with shimmery paper. Or, really, shimmery anything.

So the weird/cool thing about Star Wars is that the universe is simultaneously super high-tech (Space travel! Robots! Moisture farming!), but it is also fairly primitive, right? You can race spaceships on Tatooine, but then you go home to your mud dome. Laser guns - everyone has them. But no one is channeling Zenon Girl of the 21st Century when choosing an outfit. This makes choosing food to serve at your Star Wars party pretty much up to your discretion. You rarely see the characters eat in the Star Wars movies, so you can serve anything and give it a Star Wars name. Because the food is less important to the theme, we figured the most effective way to carry the theme would be the invitations, the menus, and the decorations.

You guys, I did a shit load of research to develop our menu. I basically lived on Wookieepedia for two weeks. And I STILL spelled Bamasian Ring wrong. These menus were also printed on the shiney silver paper.

Since our evening started in Hoth, we served Wampa Tartare as an appetizer to the menu. I'll let you in on the secret - it was just beef. We asked our guests playing characters from Corellia to bring alcohol for the apertif (did you know that alcohol is one of Corellia's main exports?), and our guests representing Tatooine brought Bantha Milk. I maybe had too much Corellia Cordial and Bantha Milk, because soon after we left Hoth for Tatooine, I looked like this:

Root Leaf Stew is one of the few things you actually see a character eating in the films. Yoda makes it for Luke during his training. Amazingly, he even tells you exactly what is in it, so we had a recipe! Unfortunately, they were not selling yarum or galla seeds at the Reading Terminal Market (out of season, I suppose?), so I made a consommé celestine instead and threw in some sautéed kale - er - root leaf. The Spiny Bograt Meatball was an addition they would probably not give you on Dagobah, but this was a nice dinner, ok? We took some liberties.

For the mid rim ceviche, we served a scallop dish and a shrimp dish in wooden boxes we found at AC Moore. Rachel was really into giving people funny serving mechanisms. It's possible they had a difficult time eating with the little bamboo sporks we gave them.... The fish boxes were very cool though (that's what she said?).

The Crown Roast of Bantha was a simple crown roast of pork with pork belly stuffing. This was a lot of fun to make! Unfortunately, as I mentioned, I was already too drunk to keep my camera still when taking its photo (as you will see below), so I just have to remember it's beauty in my heart.

The cheese course was, naturally, the easiest bit. We just bought three cheeses.

The dessert we made - the Bamasian Ring Cake - is getting its own blog post because it was the most tedius cake I have ever, ever made. It was so amazing and I want to do it again. The special thing about Bamasian ring cakes is that when you cut into them, you release a piece of Bamasian wisdom. The wise words emanate from the cake, then they disappear forever. Right as I cut into the cake, Rachel hit play on some Star Wars sound bite she had cued up on her cellphone. It is very, very possible that this was lame, but, again, I was pretty drunk at this point so I thought it was smooooooth.

In addition to the Bamasian ring cake, our guests from Endor brought delights made from the Sanctuary Moon's grava berry, which you can see in the photo above. Delicious.

As far as decorating for Tatooine, we definitely wanted to represent the binary star system that the planet orbits. Thanks to the rasterbater, we were able to get the two suns setting in our window. This looked better at night, I have to admit.

In addition to the view from the window, we added a rasterbated portrait of Mr. Jabba the Hutt. It just wouldn't be Tatooine without an hommage to the little guy, you know?

Rachel tried to make the dining room look space age by putting strange-shaped objects in our display mirror. Have you ever REALLY looked at a garlic press and said to yourself, "What a funny, space-aged shape you have, garlic press!" While I don't think anyone really noticed this mirror's transformation, I do think that it made more sense than the Catholic religious iconograpy that is normally wedged in there.

The table was covered in a silver plastic table cloth. Plastic is space-aged, right? Guys. Real Talk. We found this table cloth in the Wedding section of Wal-Mart. I just don't want anyone buying this table cloth for their wedding. Unless they are having a Star Wars wedding. In which case... yesssss.

Going back to the high tech-low tech dichotomy of Star Wars, we placed our woven table runner from Guatemala (thanks Veronica!) over the silver table cloth to create that juxtaposition. The Sarlaat was kind enough to hold candles for us. The rope light taped around the table looked awesome, and I really wanted to keep it up after the party was over. I might reinstall it when Rachel isn't looking. Also - glow stick cups are a thing. They are a thing that you, yes, you, can buy on Amazon.

The fish tank in the photo was there before the party (though, to be completely honest with you, it wouldn't be out of the question for us to buy an aquarium specifically for a party. That is how our red dining room wall became red.), but I appreciated how it referenced the aquarium in Jabba's palace from which he grabbed his squid-snacks.

You might have noticed the fan sitting in the hallway behind our dining room. This fan was strategically blowing at our fire alarm. This was not a reference to how Darth Vader strategically held Han and Leia hostage in order to get Luke to come to Cloud City and face him. No, this was because the fog machine in Hoth set off the fire alarm. Who knew that fog machines would set off the fire alarm?

Here is another party trick I like to keep up my sleeve: don't set off the fire alarm. Conversely, do have a fog machine, but only if it is not going to set off the fire alarm.

By mid-dinner, the table looked more like this:

Our guests were beautiful, and brought it, as always. Senator Candice of Coruscant and Chief Luci of Endor:

Master Jedi Rach-El, dressed for Christmas:

Moisture Farmer Emily of Tatooine, Princess Maurie of Alderaan (it's 2015 BBY!), and Moisture Farmer Ben of Tatooine:

At the end of dinner, a little droid came around (also known as we passed around a box) and gave us these nifty space-aged instruments:

It turns out that Kazoos are super fun play the Star Wars theme on as well as Christmas carols. Tell you what, these guests of ours, they know how to kazoo in to it, you know what I mean? In any case, I highly recommend kazoos at your next Star Wars themed Christmas Party.

The one critique we had for the party besides setting off the fire alarm being a faux-pas was that it wasn't actually Christmas-y enough. Turns out it was harder than we expected to blend Star Wars and Christmas. So it goes. The question now is... what planet do we do next?

#Party #StarWars #Christmas #ChristmasinTatooine