The No-Cook Holiday Party {with fresh market}

Super easy no-cooking holiday entertaining is here! This post is in partnership with The Fresh Market, opinions and ideas for hosting are mine.

I recently heard someone say on Instagram, "I'm opting out of everything this holiday season," and, 1. I get it, 2. it made me a little bit sad.

Sad because our culture has gotten to the point that things are SO bonkers that we can't do anything at all. I get it, but I also still crave holiday fun: parties, handheld stuff, bubbly things to drink, all of it. Our kitchen is in zero position to be crafting anything fancy at the moment (we're moving, it's a lot), but that doesn't stop my regular "tis the season" desires.

Here is the biggest life secret: You do not have to do everything yourself. There is a strange fascination with Power Moms, Do-it-all types, and why. Sometimes we do so many things that we don't get to enjoy any of them, do you ever find yourself in that trap?

Let's untrap ourselves. I'm doing the feeding without the cooking this year. Opting out of the cooking to save my sanity and focus on what matters: time together, delicious food, holiday cheer. Fa la la. NOT doing it all for MORE enjoyment, and I'm loving it.

I teamed up with The Fresh Market here in Greenville to show you just a few of their excellent zero-effort offerings. We shop at TFM at least weekly (and no that is not part of the promotion, we just love it), and love that they stock lots of freshly made snacks and meals for seasons when homemade cooking just isn't going to work for us.

Our Fresh Market has a few things that make it super legit for us as a family: coffee samples for Jay, a gorgeous floral department, killer weekly sales on seafood and meat, and teeny carts that Beck can push around and bash into people's ankles! Humans love that.

You can check out the entire list of platters here, ranging from breakfast and brunch offerings to crazy meat/cheese/pickled things platters that I'm super into. For this spread we used spinach dip, bagel chips, roasted pecans, and prime rib caramelized onion sliders. I mean, YUM. Effortless partying that is also super duper delicious, yes please.

I picked items intentionally for this spread that didn't require anything but napkins. No utensils, plates only if you're feeling fancy, champagne sipped out of that stack of Solo cups that you can't throw away because oceans but can't pack because you just can't.

And honestly? The platters are sturdy and arranged beautifully and can be opened, lid off, everyone dig in. You can also do what I did and throw everything on a big board (my favorite cutting board EVER) together with...anything else you have in your fridge! Deli meat, cheese, crackers, veggies, it all works. Heap everything together, nice overhead shot for the 'gram, and look at you doing it all while hardly doing anything.

The result, to toot my own low-effort horn, was fabulous. Now, of course use plates or glasses or whatever you can deal with cleaning. If you love cooking and have time, make a dip or grill some bread for an added freshness from your own kitchen. I'm not here to tell you what you can't do, but I definitely am here to give you permission to not do anything you don't want to do.

Thank you Fresh Market for the fun spread! Our littlest taste testers were completely enamored with everything we brought home and the grown-ups loved everything.