Holiday Party

'No toona?  Wat kinda party is dis?' Jack's brother Piper complains

Every year my large and boisterous group of friends chooses a Saturday in January, when all other commitments are over with, to celebrate Christmas at leisure, and in grand style.

There are always lots of presents, lots of good food, a bit of mayhem and about 20 conversations all going on at once.  

The noise can be deafening.

It's an all day event and, for me, the fun factor is extremely high.

Some of the loot!

I love my friends.  They are intelligent, witty, kind and interesting.

Having the whole day to visit and enjoy each other's company is a treat that I look forward to all year long.

Good conversations.  Good stories!

Did I mention lots of food?

We had a wonderful meal with beautiful tenderloin steaks and swordfish steaks cooked to perfection on the outside grill, and all the fixings.  It was hog heaven.

At one point, I noticed we had "funeral potatoes" and several vegetable casseroles and quipped, "we're just one green jello short of the complete [LDS] Relief Society experience."  Then I heard a voice from the couch declare: "I brought a lime jello mold".  Sure enough, Jackie's jello was soon brought out from the kitchen in all its glory.  I couldn't stop laughing, even after someone else proclaimed a church dinner would never include expensive steaks!

Besides the dinner food, the tables were loaded with snack foods of all kinds - both sweet and savory.  To my surprise, there was also dessert later on, featuring Macadamia Nut pies and Rainbow cake from King's Hawaiian Bakery (a real treat!) and some to-die-for raspberry cupcakes Joyce had made.

The cupcakes had edible glitter on them.  Seriously.

Edible.  Glitter.

It was very cool.

Maura wasn't sure what these were.
We assured her they were kitchen tools

Nobody went home hungry, that's for sure!

Santa was VERY good to all of us this year

I  think we must have all been good little girls and boys in 2012.  If the living room floor shown here is any indication, Santa sure seemed to think so.  And that was just part of the haul - the rest of it was to the left of this picture.

Our little tree

In addition to all the other fun stuff, someone had thoughtfully provided Christmas Crackers.

A Christmas "Cracker" 

I haven't had Christmas Crackers since I was in England for Christmas many years ago!  They are a tradition in England and a few other countries as well, I believe.

Pull on the ends of a Cracker and you get a loud POP! (or Crack!)
Inside are paper crowns and goodies

So, we all had crowns, which we had to wear, a slip of paper with some jokes, and some funny little toys.   I got a packet of miniature screw drivers in mine.  We all read our jokes out loud.  It was fun.

Queens for a day

Paula and Joyce had produced a video slide show using pictures from all our gatherings and birthday parties for the last couple of years. They forced everyone to sit down and watch it.

It was wonderful.

It reminded me what a blessing good friends are in life.  We sure have a lot of fun together.  We laugh a lot.

Divvying up the spoils

I know you can't necessarily tell from these photos, but the house was full of people.  It's just that a huge bunch of them are camera shy and go nuts if I point a lens in their direction.

Jackie (thankfully!) is not one of them. She has a great sense of humor.  I love the hat she wore.

A 'Chip' hat from Disney's elegant  - and toasty warm - Chip 'n Dale collection

I love my friends.  What a great Christmas this has been.