by Sandra Merville Hart

When planning a family Christmas party, I decided to create a Christmas Tree as my veggie tray. It’s a popular appetizer with my family and I thought this would be a fun way to serve it.

Chopping and preparing the vegetables was the time-consuming part of this.

Prepare small florets of broccoli and cauliflower.

Slice a cucumber.

Cut celery into 3” inch stalks.

Slice carrots into discs.

Use grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes as they are.

Slice a red pepper into thin strips.

Hint: If you are taking this veggie tray to someone’s home, put it together there as it will not stay as arranged on the car ride over.

I covered a large cookie sheet with aluminum foil as my serving dish.

Arrange broccoli with a few florets of cauliflower in a tree shape.

Possible ornaments are cucumber slices, carrots, and cherry tomatoes. I have a few family members who don’t like cucumbers or tomatoes, so I only used carrots as my ornaments.

Arrange red pepper strips as garland on the tree.

Celery stalks become the tree trunk.

Vegetables that some folks won’t eat can be stacked at the bottom of the tree to emulate gifts.

Tomatoes became the star on the tree.

As folks begin eating it, replenish the veggies to retain the “tree” shape. 😊

This was a hit at our Christmas party. It’s a fun way to encourage children to eat their veggies at a party!