Plan a Party for the End of 2020!

New Year's Day is coming, and after a year of stress baking and/ or eating an endless parade of whatever canned and packaged goods were available at the grocery store two weeks ago, maybe you're ready for a little break. No recipes. No work except a little pre-planning. Let's let the Kroger Deli [and] Bakery Party Guide take us back to the 1980s (or thereabouts--the pamphlet is undated but looks similar to the one in this 1986 commercial) so we can pre-order a party tray and pretend all those cold cuts will be shared with other people.

And if you're serious about cold cuts, you can go with the All Meat Splendor.

There's a lot of greenery for an "all meat" tray, but I guess you have to have some contrasting colors to highlight all that "moist, pink ham."

In fact, if you're really into ham, there's this option:

I love that the All Ham Tray "has eye appeal with the mustard center highlighting its elegance." Who knew that a tray of sliced salted pig could be so refined?

Of course, all that ham will get old fast if you're the only one eating it. If you live near a fancy Kroger, maybe you should treat yo self to a tray of Gourmet Hors d'oeuvres.

You'll have to turn on the oven for a half-hour or so, but who can resist an entire tray of franks 'n blankets, cheese straws, beef pockets, chicken liver puffs, potato whirls, and shrimp puffs? (Okay, I can, easily, because I hate everything, but I'm sure a lot of people would be happy to polish off this tray for the new year.)

Maybe you've been doing a bit too much treating yourself when the fridge is always a few steps away, though. Well, don't worry! Kroger has that covered too. 

Just get the Dieter's Delight tray loaded up with turkey breast and lo-fat cheeses! And cry silently as you shovel them in.

I know the year has been hard on everyone's finances, so if all of these sound a bit too premium to round out 2020, you can always go with The Basic.

If you're all by yourself, you won't even have let anybody else know how basic you are. You can just eat your shame in the form of German Bologna, Dutch Loaf, Chopped Ham, and American cheese.

Or if you want to make the version of myself who worked in a supermarket deli 20-some years ago hate you, you can order The Budgeteer. 

I'd feel bad about hating you because I'm a "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" type of person, so I would feel bad hating someone who ordered a budget tray. Pickle and Pimento Loaf was THE WORST, though. The smell made me work to rein in my gag reflex, but the worst part was that pickles and pimentos flew everywhere when I was slicing. I'd look like a damn Christmas tree by the end of my shift whenever that shit was on sale.

My favorite is the tray for all those artistic souls: the Elegante.

Yes, this "elegant assortment of meat, cheese, spreads and fruit bread" is "imaginatively arranged," all right. It looks like the head of the deli remembered this tray was due about 13 minutes before it was supposed to be ready and just dumped all the random odds and ends she could find onto a tray, toothpicked a bunch of sliced olives to the top in the hopes that no one would notice how messy it was, and called it a day.

Be sure to put in those orders now so they'll be ready by New Year's! Alternatively, you can make up your own 2020 party tray. Maybe just dump a can of rinsed kidney beans onto a quarter of a tray, fill the next quarter with hot dogs (or cocktail weenies if you want to feel fancy), dump the rest of the shredded taco cheese that was in the back of the fridge and that you hope is not yet moldy into the third quarter, and fill the fourth quarter with pasta (cooked if you planned ahead and straight out of the box-- who cares?-- if you didn't). Put a jar of cheap marinara in the middle for dipping/ dumping on everything. Garnish with crumbled banana bread and/ or olives on toothpicks (or cubes of banana bread and olives skewered on the same toothpicks if you feel extra fancy). It's sure to be at least as enjoyable as 2020 was!