But for many years now one of my most favorite things about the holidays is the parties. I'm not even talking about friends' parties. Do my friends give parties? Do I have any friends? I'm talking about organizational parties. Club parties, school parties, work parties. I adore them all. So far this month I've been to three club parties, and next week we've got a school party at daycare and a party at Rocket Boy's work. I wish we belonged to more clubs so we could go to more parties.
RB doesn't share my love of these parties. And really, I'm not sure why I like them so much. They're a bother. You have to make food, buy something for a gift exchange, wear a holiday sweater. But I love all that. I love making a special little dish for a party (it's entirely different from, e.g., making dinner). I love looking for a nice little gift, "under ten dollars, please." I love putting on a green shirt and my jingle bell earrings.
Tonight we went to a simply splendiferous party for a club Rocket Boy belongs to in Trona. It went beyond all expectations.
I had to do a lot of work to get ready for it. We had to bring a side dish, so I cut up two big bowls worth of fruit -- watermelon in one, and pineapple, oranges, strawberries, bananas, and grapes in the other. That took a while. We also had to bring gifts for the kids to open, because the club provides gifts for the adults. So I had to shop (at Walmart) for the kids' gifts, and wrap them. Then they encouraged people to bring donations to Spark of Love (like Toys for Tots), so I had to shop (at Kmart) for those gifts too. Then we had to drive to Trona, which is half an hour east of us, with noisy, complaining four-year-old twins in the back seat.
But when we reached the building where the club has its headquarters, we were ushered into the back room and there was a long table with maybe 40 people sitting at it -- holiday placemats and napkins and centerpieces and favors -- just lovely! When everyone was ready, we said the Pledge of Allegiance and someone said a long prayer, and then we filed into the other room to load our paper plates with 30 different dishes (the other 10 people brought dessert).
After we ate, there was some club business, and then someone read "The Night Before Christmas." At each person's plate was an envelope. Whenever the words "the" or "and" were read aloud, you had to pass your envelope to the left. After the chaos died down, we opened our envelopes to find a number, and in that order people went up to the Christmas tree to pick out a gift. Mine was some soap and hand sanitizer, and Rocket Boy received a beverage "sleeve." The twins' gifts were small toy monster trucks. And then we had to drive back to Ridgecrest, with the twins fighting all the way, la la la.
It was fabulous. I'll be glowing like a front-yard Christmas display for days. Next up: Jesus's Birthday Party at daycare. Can this holiday season get any better?
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