Monday, December 14, 2009

We successfully pulled off our first ever real life party.

I did not pull it off as Martha Stewart would have.  In fact, when everyone got here at 5:00 pm, I wasn't even ready.  But it all came together, we all ate more than enough and I think we all had a really fun time.

So herein lies a recap of Britton & Faith's Ugly Christmas Sweater Party 2009...

My favorite part of the preparation was that I didn't have to "worry" about what to wear.  Pick out an ugly sweater and go.

Though I could have paid a bit more attention to my hair....

I forgot to put it on my to-do list and ran flat out of time...

Aren't our sweaters lovely?  I found them at the local thrift store for $2.98 each.  Bless the little lady who knit them....  I hope she never knows that they wound up having ugly green tinsel and bows and Christmas felt appliques stitched to them.  We also had big ugly fake bulbs dangling from the tinsel.  But the kids ripped those off.  (Miles and Ella, not the teenagers...)

Like I said, we've never hosted a Christmas party at our house before.  Never had a place big enough to put everyone...

But I think I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

For the first time since we moved into this house, I felt really at home.  Completely decorated for Christmas, filled with the smells of wonderfully familiar foods, I was glad to have invited friends over to have a bit of a crazy good time.

I made cupcakes, cookies, crabbies, sausage/cream cheese crescents, spinach artichoke dip (actually I had my mom make this), fruit dip with apples & strawberries, 7 layer dip...

had crackers, chips, popcorn, hot chocolate with marshmallows......

Miles put the sprinkles on all the cupcakes.  He now wants to put sprinkles on EVERYTHING!

So my to-do list was a bit longer than I thought....  always is.  This was due in part to the fact that I decided to add painting the dining room to my list on Saturday morning (one wall wasn't finished from last month).......  I had thought about just letting it go.  I knew no one would really care, or maybe even notice.  But the need to have it all painted was like a chicken pecking on my forehead, so paint we did.

And while the paint was out, we moved all the heavy furniture and painted places I hadn't been able to get to.

I. Am. Crazy.

And a slow painter.

I blame Ella.

...So 5:00 pm Saturday evening came in a flash.  I was totally not ready.  Maybe 75% ready....

All of a sudden, there were 30 people standing at the door.

If you know me well, you know that in that moment, my heart stopped beating, I nearly passed out and I thought to myself "who's idea was it to invite 30 people over?!!!"

I told them I was a freak and made them take their shoes off because of the new carpet.....

That's 60 shoes at the door folks.  I'm ok with it.

***

As everyone came in and began to graze on the food and make themselves comfy, Britton took photos of  all the ugly sweaters.

We uploaded them so that Drew and the Midnight to Twelve guys to view them online and serve as our "celebrity" judge panel.

There were some UGLY sweaters, but these 3 were deemed the winners of the ugly contest.

(l-r: Grahmm - 1st place, Joe - 2nd place, Sherrie - 3rd place)

They got Sonic gift cards.  That's what they're holding up.  But Joe & Grahamm don't look all that excited.

Hey Grahmm and Joe, if you're happy about winning Sonic money - and i know you are - tell your face about it.

***

Then we played The Singing Bee - Christmas Edition (which I totally made up).

When the song stopped, you had to grab the "microphone" candy cane off the stool and sing the rest of the phrase.

It got a little crazy....

We had shattered candy canes, flying candy canes, people sliding across the wood floor to retrieve  rogue candy canes.....

There were unique gaming strategies...

Like this blocking out technique.

You had to keep your hands on your head as to not have an unfair advantage, you see.

Miles thought it was all hilarious.  He'd run around laughing and screaming....  and got excited about the songs he knew, like Frosty the Snowman.

After all that, we popped popcorn and watched Merry Madagascar, which is sure to become the next Christmas movie classic.  Totally hilarious.  Miles calls it "Mewwry Madscar".

I gotta tell you.  I've never been happier about having 30+ people in my house.

Especially these 30 people.

That's right, 30 people's dishes too.

There's a reason why rich people have these things catered....

Good thing I had amazing little helpers at the end of the night.