We ran the gauntlet of holiday parties this past weekend, starting with the office Christmas party on Friday night. I’ve been doing some GIS work for my husband’s office of late, so I could attend this one on a more comfortable footing than usual. Generally, I just smile when Shawn says, “Oh, and have you met my wife?” all the while trying like mad to remember the names of people that I only meet once a year at this party. This year, we camped out at a small table with the other geeks on the Mapping Programming Team, swapping ignorant user tales and sipping good wine.
That party was followed by a gingerbread house decorating party on Saturday night and a caroling party on Sunday night, both annual features in our December line-up. At the former, I regulated myself to decorating one gingerbread man, done up Tim Burton-style, and followed Luke around for the rest of the evening as he attempted to charm the party-goers out of pieces of orange.
I think the caroling party yet again sufficiently alienated the neighborhood, though we avoided repeating the dog-and-candy-cane incident of 2005 – a very good thing, I assure you.
I knew that by the time we rolled around to Sunday night I was either going to be feeling very merry, or sufficiently grinched out. I was pleased to be in the former mode of good cheer as I enjoyed a cup of mulled wine with the neighbors over a rowdy game of Animal-Vegetable-Mineral. If you are not familiar with our version of this game, it’s something like charades with general holiday items as a clues. I say “general” because we generally disagreed with the holiday classification of some of these items, though I had fun acting out the abominable snowman just the same and my holiday spirit helped me to hold my tongue against a rather unholy reply when I employed my son to help me act out “mistletoe” and a dear friend shouted out “immaculate conception.”
Now the baby is abed with dancing sugarplums in his head (more likely oscillating oranges) and Shawn’s finishing up the lights on the tree.
Note to self for next year: Take jingle bells off shoes before putting baby to bed.