O Christmas Appetizer Tree

As fun to make as it is to eat, you can customize O Christmas Appetizer Tree to your taste, using cheese, meat, olives, cherry tomatoes, or any antipasto item that you can skewer with a toothpick!

Start with a floral styrofoam cone, I found mine at Michaels. The styrofoam cones come in assorted sizes so you can scale this appetizer tree up or down to suit your crowd. Mine was 4 7/8 inches x 17 7/8 inches. The cones are also available in green, but the green was out of stock when I went to buy my cone. Wrap your styrofoam cone in plastic wrap so the styrofoam doesn’t come in contact with your food.

To camouflage the cone, I wrapped it in collard leaves, so the white of the styrofoam didn’t show once the tree was assembled. Feel free to use any kind of leaf lettuce to wrap your cone. Kale would give your tree a pretty texture if you leave some of the areas exposed in between your edible decorations.

Collard greens are around $2.00 a bunch and are large and flat, so you can wrap your cone easily and quickly with just a few leaves. I removed the large stems from the collards before wrapping them around the cone, overlapping and attaching them with floral pins. You can find floral pins (also referred to as ‘greening pins’) on the floral aisle at the craft store or online.

I started with the cherry tomatoes as red ornaments, and placed them on the tree with toothpicks spacing them evenly on the tree.

Use a tube of denture adhesive cream (like Fixodent) and squeeze some on the bottom of the cone to adhere it to the cake plate to prevent it from toppling or shifting. I keep a tube on hand for  candle holders to keep tapers upright.

Add your other ‘edibles’ with a toothpick. You can place them in rows if you like or in a more random fashion. I tucked sprigs of rosemary in between some of the spaces for some fragrant Christmas greenery.

Find 30+ Season’s Eatings Recipes for your Holiday Entertaining. HERE! You’ll find recipes for everything from appetizers and party bites, to cocktails and cookies, food gifts and more!