Holiday Fruit and Cheese Board

**This is a sponsored post in collaboration with Walmart and SheKnows Media.

Where did December go? We are less than 10 days away from Christmas and I’m scrambling.  Are you ready? By ready, I mean one-hundred percent done with menu prep, shopping, wrapping and all the other holiday season merry making.

I’m way behind this year. Which of course has me in panic because I’m usually 80 percent to the finish line. But the one thing I do have a good handle on – my cheese board and wine pairing! I’ve learned over the years, a good fruit and cheese board will forgive many things, especially if you run behind in the kitchen and Christmas dinner is delayed.  

Trust me when I tell you a good wine and cheese board is clutch. It keeps everyone nibbling, sipping and moving around, and most importantly mingling. With that, I wanted to share a few tips when creating your fruit and cheese board, things like: (1) make sure you have a good mix of cheese from hard to soft (2) a variety of fruit cut to size that are easily edible in one bite (3) don’t forget to strike a balance of sweet and savory (4) of course, don’t forget the wine.

For the boards you see in the picture, I paired them with Caged Unoaked Chardonnay since it has an oak aging influence, the 100% stainless steel aging allows the vibrant aromas of pineapple, melon, pear and golden delicious apple to shine through. For a red I went with Five Acres 2014 Pinot Noir which is a fruit-driven wine with notes of pomegranate, plums and glazed strawberry from French oak aging. The best part? Both of these award-winning wines are under $10!

Both wines are perfect for holiday entertaining and can be found in-store at Walmart as can everything else you see in the photos: the board, the glasses, the fruit, the cheese and crackers – everything.

Yay to shopping at Walmart, since it will get me that much closer to the finish. I love that I can do Santa shopping and food shopping all in one place. Now if I can only get an elf to gift wrap and assemble a few toys I’d be that much closer to crossing the finish line.