Eating 3 Bean Salad with a Tiny Cocktail Fork

Tiny cocktail fork compared to salad fork and dinner fork.

For our Christmas Eve Dinner we always have oyster stew for the adults and chicken rice soup for the young crowd.  In addition we have a buffet of mainly finger foods: cocktail shrimp, hot meatballs, cheese, crackers, nuts, deviled eggs, and this year I added a 3 bean salad.  I set the table for the soup, and then folks mainly graze from the buffet, but some folks do go back to their tables after gathering a plate of finger foods.

Table set for soup. 

I had found these cute little disposable cocktail forks at Party City and used them on the buffet for the shrimp and for the meatballs.

Tiny disposable cocktail forks.

Buffet: Cheese and clementines.

Buffet: Deviled eggs.

Buffet:  nuts and cheese ball shaped like a hedgehog.

I later realized that in the dining room, folks were trying to eat their 3 bean salad with those tiny little forks.  Son Michael even commented,"Mom, do you have any teeny butter knives?"  I had put soup spoons on the table but had forgotten knives and forks.  Of course they needed knives for buttering their bread and forks for eating their salad.  Some actually thought I intended them to eat the beans with the tiny little cocktail forks. Apparently my sons were having fun eating the salad, bean by bean, as they tried to pierce the beans with the teeny fork. I did get them the proper  forks for eating their salad.