Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Kenmore Blogger Summit in Chicago, Illinois. This fun gathering brings together bloggers to check out the latest appliance innovations and see how they might help them in the kitchen – especially important with the holidays around the corner. “Holiday Hosting” was was this year’s theme, with bloggers bringing recipes and tips for making the season bright.

To get us all into the spirit, they decked out the studio with a full blown Christmas tree, topped with a spatula. Isn’t that adorable?

To welcome us, they served cocktails and a delicious dinner buffet. The appetizers which were served were actually favorite recipes submitted by several bloggers in attendance!

The proceedings were hosted by the wonderful Chef Kari Karch and the awesome Kenmore team. Kari shared some neat “Holiday Hacks” for making the season easier, such as adding chilling a glass of wine by adding frozen grapes, or putting a pair of too-tight shoes in the freezer with a bag of water to stretch them and make them more comfy for holiday parties:

Another suggestion was to add a festive fragrance to your home by sprinkling cinnamon on the carpet and then vacuuming.

After we had gotten a chance to eat and mingle, they brought out Brandon Ogborn, a stand-up comic who recently auditioned for Lorne Michaels. “Yeah, Lorne asked me to do SNL this week and I said, ‘Nah, I’ve got this Kenmore thing,'” he quipped. He brought out two comediennes, who helped with his efforts to dramatically retell holiday disaster stories. Each blogger had submitted a story about their most hilarious holiday mishaps, and Brandon called several of the funniest onstage to tell their epic stories. One of my favorites was the story of well-meaning parents who mistook a pan of frozen ground beef for Tiramisu and unwittingly served it to their guests who were too polite to say anything!

After they read out a few blogger stories, the comedians also shared a few stories they had written, inspired by the blogger accounts they had read. It was pretty funny to see these guys embrace the bizarre angle and have fun integrating snippets about Kenmore appliance features in their stand-up comedy!

After the entertainment, we headed back to the cozy Hotel Felix and hit the hay for a little shut-eye after a long day of fun and travel!