Phillip leaves tomorrow morning for a business trip, his first since Emma was born. I'm feeling pretty nervous about it. I'm also telling myself that anticipating the trip is always the worst part of the trip. Still, I haven't had to solo parent with a new baby before and I'm anxious. Blargh.
I spent the whole day putting my house back together after the Christmas party. AS PER USUAL, we have no pictures. Well, we have pictures of PEOPLE, but we have no pictures of what things LOOKED LIKE, which is annoying for both you and my mother. I THINK things looked nice? I spent a whole lot more time decorating this year, mainly because the FPC and her husband made all the food. ALL. THE. FOOD. Which leads me to today's Blogging Topic: Party Debrief.
Things I Will Most Definitely Do Again:
1. Get someone else to make the food. Not sure my sister will want to do this again (even though I was an EXCELLENT client and did not hassle her one little bit I DIDN'T) and if she doesn't I will most certainly be looking into catering. I lost count of the times I said to an empty kitchen or an empty living room or the shower "I AM SO HAPPY I AM NOT MAKING THE FOOD!" It's terrible, because the food is pretty much the most important part, but I am SO the girl who goes to a party and dines on fudge and wine. Obviously it is better to have someone who cares do this part. Also, they did an AWESOME JOB. Seriously, not to brag or anything, but it was SO AWESOME. We decided on the menu together, but she and BIL made everything look pretty (most important to me) and taste delicious (most important to everyone else). I also have a refrigerator full of leftover cream puffs. I WIN.
2. Have a hot chocolate bar. I found out later that my other sister (who comes early and helps me decorate - I am very much into Slave Family Labor) was Doubtful on the hot chocolate bar. And I have to say that DURING the party I was doubtful as well, because as far as I could tell, no one was drinking any. But this morning I went around picking up a bazillion paper cups with hot chocolate sludge in the bottom and I realized: dude. A lot of people drank hot chocolate! Also, it looked pretty cute. (The plastic spoons dipped in melted chocolate seemed to be a hit too.)
3. Have champagne pomegranate punch. I didn't have the right rum for this recipe AND a friend had to go out and buy more ingredients because one batch looked puny in my gigando new punch bowl, but it was SO PRETTY and SO TASTY. Highly recommend.
4. Not go crazy on the cookies. For Christmas parties past I made ninety-seven different kinds of super complicated cookies and NO ONE EVER ATE THEM by which I mean the only cookies people really ate were the GROSS SUGAR COOKIES with all the ICING and WHY WAS I DOING THIS? I still love making cookies, but I scaled it back big time. And still, the only food left over was the sugary kind. (This blows my mind, by the way. I will go with sugar each and every time.) I'll still make a few more for family get togethers and Christmas Eve, but I'm happy with what I had for the party this year. (Not like I had the time to make a zillion cookies anyway EMMA.)
5. Keep a Pinterest board. My favorite party moment: when the wife of one of Phillip's former classmates said, "I want to take a picture of this room and put it on Pinterest! Have you heard of Pinterest?" And then I fetched the laptop and showed her my party pinboard. HEH. (We did Christmas lyric garlands, tomato cage trees, the hot chocolate bar, the branches with ornaments, and a spinach wrap Christmas tree.)
Things I Am Not So Sure About
1. I put all the food on the dining room table in the dining room which meant... everyone hung out in the dining room. So the living room, which is the largest space in the house, was sort of empty, and the dining room was packed and I kept kicking myself for arranging things differently. Next year I think we'll move the table out to the living room and put the food there.
2. The Booze. We were super into mixed drinks for a while, but as the years go by, people are (it seems to me) not so much into the experimentation as they are with pouring themselves a nice glass of Maker's Mark. As stocking the bar is one of the budget busters I sort of want to rethink the whole thing. Maybe just have the stuff on hand for two or three Signature Party Cocktails. Maybe even pre-mix the pitchers? Not sure how much people enjoy making their own drinks.
3. How to have everything READY. I thought this wouldn't be a problem since I wasn't doing the food, but YOU GUYS. I made an EXTRA PAN of easy toffee bars because I didn't think I had enough - AND THEN I FORGOT THEM IN THE FREEZER. I was making whipped cream for the hot chocolate bar at the last minute. The punch bowl was too large for the punch recipe. I forgot the hummus in the fridge. I opened the jar of tomato sauce for the meatballs, but I never heated it up and served it. It's like the door bell rings and I LOSE MY MIND. And I try SO HARD every year to keep the kitchen moderately clean, and EVERY YEAR it is a TOTAL MESS when people arrive. This drives me BONKERS. Either Phillip comes in to help and makes a giant mess, or we forgot something and need to create another mess or I just totally underestimate MESS IN GENERAL.
Things I Cannot Do Anything About, But Which Bug Me Continually, To The Point Where I Need To Work On 'Having Perspective'
1. For several weeks my world revolves around "are enough people going to come!?!?" And then enough people DO come (usually) but there are always a few who don't show or call and bail at the last minute and this should NOT disappoint me so much (see: ALWAYS ENOUGH PEOPLE) but it does.
2. Being so tired that all I want to do is crash on the couch when the party starts. Not doing the food this year REALLY helped in that department, but I was still pretty exhausted. It's sort of like you get everything ready, and then you want everyone to show up the NEXT night, when you've had a nice nap.
3. Feeling like I worked really hard on certain aspects of the party and then feeling like they didn't go over very well. Like the hot chocolate bar - I was super excited about that (and afterwards I think it DID go over well) but at the time I felt kind of bummed about it. Or when my string of Christmas lyrics fell down and I couldn't put it back up because we'd have to get out the ladder - WHO CARES, right? Wait! I CARE. TOO MUCH.
4. Not talking to everyone. See... I know it's weird, but the PARTY part of the party is a teensy bit stressful. Hanging out one on one is WAY preferable to chatting with you at a noisy party, but I don't get to decorate my whole house and serve a Christmas tree of spinach pinwheels and wear a ridiculous satin headband when I hang out with you one on one, right? Not a HUGE deal, but there are always people I only see once or twice a year and then I don't get to talk much with them and when the party's over I'm always like, "MAN! I didn't get to talk to her at ALL! LAME!"
5. Focusing on all the negative stuff when IN REALITY, I had a super fun time planning and prepping and a super DUPER time when everyone came over and I THINK everyone else had a decent time too AND COME ON, ME!
So. That is that. Next Saturday we're hosting a family party, the Saturday after that is the big Christmas Eve shindig with my family and the Saturday after THAT is New Year's Eve, right? Around then? My head is swimming. I am PRO-CHRISTMAS, but I am very very tired. And Phillip being away this week is not really going to help with that. BLARGH AGAIN.
I have pictures, but I'll have to post them later. SOMEONE is hungry. (Also, SOMEONE had a major party hangover and slept most of the day, only waking to shriek for lunch or dinner.) Now. Who is going to come over here and give me a foot rub? I can pay you in leftover cream puffs.