What I'm Reading

Stardust by Joseph Kanon
Coming out in the fall, the next novel by the author of The Good German. It's so good I kinda want to lick the pages.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

It's My Party

My college friends and I generally complain that we don't see each other enough. Then the holidays come, and you have weeks like last one, where we saw each other four times. My friend's husband asked us, "By the end of the week, are you going to have anything left to talk about?" Never underestimate the power of women's ability to chat. He's probably one of those men who also doesn't understand why we talk to each other on our cell phones while we're on our way to meet. Sheesh.

Monday night was our 8th annual "Christmas on Crack" theme party. Now to understand this, you need to know that my friends love to create traditions. Even better if it's a crazy tradition. And eight years ago, our friend Anthony planned a drinks night at Rolf's, this restaurant that had totally over-the-top Christmas decorations.







We all crammed into this teeny bar area, pissing off everyone waiting for tables, and drank ourselves silly on German beer. At one point, someone made a comment along the lines of, "Dude! This place looks like Christmas on Crack!" (Except the words were probably slurred.) And just like that, the tradition was born. A year or two later, Schnapps sent around an email with this funny PowerPoint presentation and a comment that it would be great if we made t-shirts. Since one of our friends does marketing promotions for a career, we all showed up in shirts to surprise her. And thus was born tradition #2--the annual matching shirts.

On Friday night was my friends Doug and Joe's annual party, the highlight of which was the most honest invitation I've ever seen:

It's that time of year again to cram a shit load of people into a 600 square foot apartment. Free food and drinks will be served to those individuals willing to go nip-to-nip with their fellow man and woman! We'll start the festivities off at 7:00 so feel free to swing by for 10 minutes on your way home from work, or stay the whole night!
We look forward to seeing you all soon!

In contrast to my "early garage style" decorating mode, their apartment is what I like to refer to as "Gay Pottery Barn." My favorite picture of the night was taken several drinks in. This is Schnapps and me talking to Comet, our pregnant friend,'s belly (which she refers to as Poppyseed, since that was the approximate size of the baby when they found out). Schnapps was telling Poppy that (s)he had to come a few days late, on June 12th, since Schnapps would be on a business trip until the 10th. I was telling Poppy how much fun we were going to have and promising to tell her/him embarrassing stories about Comet.

















Saturday night was Christmas dinner with the friends in my supper club. We do a Secret Santa at this party, and I don't want to imply that we're getting older or anything, but Ronnie got a food processor and was absolutely thrilled. Anthony pulled De's name this year, and her card said "ho ho ho to my little ho. Love, Sexy Santa." She opened it in front of her husband, and no one even batted an eye. I really love my friends.

Then Sunday, the grand finale of our Christmas weekend, was my annual Christmas party. (Well, sort of annual. I had to skip the last 2 years due to the black "paying off my credit card debt" period we don't like to talk about.) I cooked for two days in an effort to make everything perfect, and Louise declared me the "hostess with the mostest" so I guess I pulled it off. Phew. There was a big storm, and a bunch of people cancelled at the last minute (including Sarah, who told me "I really want to be there, but I don't want me and the girls to get dead," an arguement I couldn't disagree with), but we still had about 25 people in my apartment, which was enough to be fun, but not so many that other people's sweat was wiping off on you. Which is always nice. After the initial period of making sure everyone had drinks and walking appetizers in and out of the kitchen, I realized everyone was having fun, everyone was taken care of, and I got to actually enjoy the party. And even though it was an afternoon event, there may have been just a little bit of drinking going on.













I'm sure in a few weeks I'll be complaining again that I don't see them often enough. But for right now, I've had all the togetherness my liver can handle.






p.s. My nativity set has absolutely nothing to do with this story, but Comet took a picture of it, and I really love it, and it was a gift from my sisters. So I'm going to show it off a little.

p.p.s. She also took a picture of the infamous tree.

13 comments:

Laura G said...

Yay! I missed the annual holiday open house. so glad it's back!

Diosa said...

Looks like you've been having a good time. The tree looks fabulous. I love the pic of you talking to Comet's belly.

J said...

Ummm, that's not a *insert your last name here* tree. I seem to recall your trees always had the BIG bulb multi colored lights.

Shouldn't you be honoring tradition? ;)

J said...

Ummm, that's not a *insert your last name here* tree. I seem to recall your trees always had the BIG bulb multi colored lights.

Shouldn't you be honoring tradition? ;)

Anonymous said...

Oh, Bookgirl. I wish I lived int he big bad city with you and got to hang out with your cool friends. I'm so jealous.....

Bookgirl said...

Laura, I missed it too.

Di, I talk to the belly every time I see her. I say hello and goodbye, chat a little with it during the party. I figure it's never too early to be the cool aunt.

J, It turns out those lights were a HUGE fire hazard. But I still admit that I fought my parents tooth and nail when they got rid of them. My aesthetic has changed over the years, though. I have white lights, but I also no longer wear a shirt and matching tights, nor do I cut my own bangs.

Liz, I wish you lived here too. Oh, the fun we'd have...

Dina R. D'Alessandro said...

Aw, so fun! I'm sorry I missed Sunday, but am glad you had a fab time!

J said...

Of course they were, but wasn't that half the fun? ;)

We did white lights for a bit, but now we do a mix of white and colored for the crew.

Though I did have a laugh about the bangs thing, miss thing cut a huge chunk out of hers a couple of weeks back. I almost died. She has all that gorgeous hair and now its mismatched on one side...fortunately, this was all post xmas card pics (your card mailed yesterday, btw).

Anonymous said...

that was a week to remember!

Lori G. said...

You look like you were having lots of fun and the parties look hilarious and wonderful!

(Have you read the Amy Sedaris entertaining book? If not, you'd love it.)

I love the photos! You're so cute!

(But no shoe shots!)

Lori, the Queen Monkey Wrapper
(when I worked in a store, men would ask me to wrap their presents because then their wives might believe that THEY did it, that's how bad I was.)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Anonymous said...

i just want to let you know that i am the one that coined the phrase COC. merry christmas.oxox

Laura G said...

Mary! I had no idea that was you! And why have you not been to the most recent celebration of the tradition whose name you coined?

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