First Christmas Parties of the Season

Well, the Christmas season is officially in full swing! Yesterday between the 3 of us, we had 3 parties to attend. Jay had to work in the morning and got home around 11:30am. Everyone was released early this UTA for the squadron's annual Christmas party. We left the house around noon and drove to Buellton to AJ Spur's. Our group was upstairs and we had around 80 people in attendance. It was crowded, but we managed to all squeeze in and keep each other very warm! The group that organized the party this year did a fabulous job. We had limited menus that included a cheeseburger, chicken Caesar salad, top sirloin, ground sirloin with smothered mushrooms, flat iron steak, or breaded calamari steaks. Each meal comes with beef vegetable soup that you top with black beans and salsa, green salad, skillet potatoes with onions, Texas toast, rice pilaf, and a root beer float. Quite a spread they put on at the Spur's! We all placed our orders (I had the top sirloin, Jay had the flat iron steak and Kendall had the chicken Caesar salad) and we had a Christmas tree decorating contest. Each table had a small Christmas tree on the tabletop and we were instructed to decorate the tree (we had one tree for each group of 8 people) using items on the table, items on each person, or items in purses or bags. Our tree was rather pathetic, but we made our best attempt. The winning tree had REAL decorative ribbon on it and a blinking star on the top. Who carries a blinking star in their purse? Anyway, they did deserve to win and even though we lost, we had a lot of laughs decorating our little tree.

They also had a slide show with photos of the squadron over the last year, a drawing for prizes (they gave away a bunch of gift cards, a Blue Tooth headset, a digital photo frame, and an Ipod Nano (Kendall won her Ipod at last year's Christmas party.) They also had their annual fund raiser. Every year members of the squadron vote on who will have the honor of wearing the elf suit. Each vote costs $1 and the person with the most votes traditionally has to change into the elf suit (including read stockings) and hand out the white elephant Christmas gifts. This year, instead of doing a white elephant gift, they decided to have everyone bring a $25 Toys for Tots gift instead. So, the "winner" of the elf suit voting had to put on the suit right after lunch and walk around the room and suffer the humiliation. It was neck and neck toward the voting cut-off and Jay was in first place for a while. Fortunately, Steve Blank pulled in some extra votes at the end, so he did the honors and Jay was able to maintain his dignity. Poor Steve didn't know that his wife wanted him to win so that she could put his photo in the elf suit on their Christmas cards. I hope this isn't their last Christmas together.........

After the 9 Sops Christmas party, we came home and relaxed for a little while and then Jay and I dropped Kendall off at her friend Ken's Hollywood themed 14th birthday party. Ken gave Kendall a Hannah Montana wig for her birthday and she decided to wear the wig and dress up as Avril Levigne for the party. She designed her costume on her own and we encouraged her to do so. She was having so much fun putting her costume together that we didn't want to discourage her, so she came out all put together and was ready to go!

I don't know why Jay insisted on getting me in the background in this photo!

After we dropped Kendall off at Ken's house, Jay and I drove out to Nipomo for the Genesis volunteer Christmas party. As many of you know, I have been helping out with the children's ministry with our church since July. I serve on Wild West Wednesdays and have really been enjoying it. Every year the Genesis leaders Christie & Erik host a volunteer Christmas party at their home and everyone brings homemade soups. I made Rachael Ray's Black Bean Stoup and it was very tasty! There were probably over a dozen different soups at the party and no two were alike. We started off with appetizers (potstickers, chilled shrimp and mozerella sticks) and hot apple cider. First I had the chicken tortilla soup and a piece of bread, followed by the black bean stoup, which incidentally we are having for dinner tonight as well. Jay started off with the minestrone soup and had split pea with ham for seconds. They had all the fixins (cheese, shredded lettuce, sour cream, tortilla chips, salsa) and about 3 different kinds of rolls. After dinner we each had a small piece of Snickers cake. After dinner we all sat around and had some fellowship and then it was time for games. The majority of the ladies (except for 3 of us) played a game at the large picnic table and the guys (and the 3 brave ladies) played Texas Hold 'Em at the dining room table. We played with chips, but there was no buy in and there were 10 of us total. Only 3 people at the table had ever played before, so it was a very relaxed game. Jay and I were only able to play for about 40 minutes before we had to leave to pick up Kendall from Ken's birthday party but we really enjoyed ourselves and I think I had the most chips when we left (I won two consecutive jackpots.) The best part was just being able to spend time with friends and meet some new friends and just enjoy the company. Tomorrow night is the women's tea. By the way, Kendall's team won the scavenger hunt at the birthday party and she came home with a DVD of all of the Pixar short movies. Yea!!!!