We recently enjoyed the opportunity to host a Mother-Daughter Date Night and book signing featuring our dear friend Kimberly Schlegel Whitman and her latest release titled Parties Around A Punchbowl. Lolli and I love that she is bringing the punch bowl back, in true Southern fashion!
Kimberly is an author, TV host (You may recognize her from her Today Show segments!), lifestyle expert, and editor-at-large of Southern Living magazine who inspires many with her creativity and style. This is a friend who is all about #intentionalmemories, and each of her books provides wonderful ideas for hosting, gifting, and gathering in gracious ways.
Our event was hosted at Interabang Books, a place WHERE THE GENERATIONS MEET™ in Dallas for well-curated literature, book clubs, and author events (They have weekly story times for kids, too!). Guests included friend of all ages, from babies to grandmothers, and many ladies in between eager to see Kimberly and her beautiful new book, hot off the press:
In Parties Around A Punchbowl, Kimberly makes the case for punch’s comeback to the party scene with a dozen festive party ideas and recipes, all organized around a punch bowl! Punch recipes (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and easy dishes to serve with punch are the center of each celebration highlighted in the book. As holiday entertaining season approaches, it is a helpful resource to have nearby, or to share with friends as a gift!
Inspired by the book, we served wine, cheese, and a few sweet treats arranged on Lolli’s silver trays. As Kimberly is a true Southern hostess, we dolled things up with white linens and blue-and-white flower arrangements. Kimberly treated us to her Pomander Punch, a blend of citrus juices and sparkling soda. Topped with sliced orange pomanders, the punch looked as festive as it was tasty! She paired her punch with savory-sweet rosemary cashews, which were a big hit (Everyone was raving about these!) and are also featured in the book on page 75.
As guests arrived, they sampled punch and snacks and purchased books to have Kimberly sign with custom notes from the author herself! Many guests bought a stack of books for Kimberly to personalize for friends this holiday season. I love keeping signed copies on-hand myself to share as hostess gifts, birthday presents, and for my own coffee table at home!
As with every #lolliandmelive event, we invite mother-daughter duos and encourage our friends to bring their sisters, aunts, grandchildren and friends to connect with other women across the generations. For the little ones in attendance, we provided a children’s table stocked with plenty of punchbowl coloring sheets, bookmarks, and crayons for their entertainment while the mommies mingled:
We love hosting these events as a fun way of #celebratingMOMents, and it was a treat to be with all of the mother-daughter duos and friends who joined us for the event. Kimberly’s daughter Millie stole the show when she jumped in as her mommy’s book signing “assistant!” And it was so special to capture a photo of Kimberly with her mother, sister and daughter –three generations of fabulous ladies celebrating Kimberly’s eighth book!
Lolli and I cannot wait to to try out some of the many recipes included Parties Around A Punchbowl at our upcoming holiday events and future showers. If you try one of Kimberly’s recipes this season, please tag us and #partiesaroundapunchbowl so we can see how you’ve applied inspiration from the book to your own entertaining repertoire!
Shop punch bowls and more books by Kimberly below:
Photos by Megan Lucas
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