Holiday party recap

Is it ever the holidays without a fun holiday party? I think not, which is why I was so excited this weekend to head up to the lake for our neighbor’s annual party.

And nothing says “road trip” like crossing the GW bridge. Look at us, happy, energized.

Our car rides are predictable. Sam always passes out immediately.

And Jackson keeps us on our toes, threatening to vomit. Look at that inverted tail, it was brewing. We’re lucky that Lauren keeps us informed with detailed status updates.

Up at the lake, Lauren and Rodney decided that fishing in sub-zero weather is a perfectly reasonable winter activity.

Minutes later, they were back inside, eager to warm up. I grabbed emergency supplies: a wool blanket for Lauren, and this for Rodney:

This sherry would make little old ladies swoon. All I was missing were some clinkety little ice cubes and a plastic-wrapped sofa.

Finally, it was time to get ready for the party. After a few outfit changes, I told Rodney that I’d be wearing this:

I love that it’s legal during the holidays to pile on seven layers of sparkle.

And no, I’m not wearing dentures. I was dehydrated from our afternoon cocktails + dry winter air and my lip got stuck to my teeth. Don’t judge, it happens.

Rodney didn’t like my outfit joke. However, the joke was on me when we got to the party and realized that the new location wasn’t a fancy Italian restaurant. It was always fancy Italian. Did we miss the memo? I still blame Rodney. I think he knew we’d be at a dive bar and didn’t tell me.

Although I didn’t wear all of my sparkly gear, I was definitely wearing most of it. Overdressed for the occasion, I spent the entire night in my winter coat, mortified that in a sea of jeans, I was wearing more decoration than a Christmas tree.

After knocking back a few too many gin & tonics, we headed home for the night.

Hungover the next morning, my first action the next day was to break up an argument n a teepee. The kids get seriously territorial over that thing.

Fortunately, they were game for some TV allowing us to get a little more shut eye. The kind of shut eye where someone is crawling on your face, but I was in a bed. With covers. I wasn’t complaining.

Unfortunately cartoons didn’t capture their attention for long. But the good news is that our guys are pretty good at self-entertaining.

That would be 1. Bandaids in weird places 2. “Look, I’m in a paper bag, and I can walk like this.” 3. The head scratcher (yes, such a thing exists, no I didn’t buy it) 4. “This salami is a monkey. This salami is a bear.” 

With my defenses down, Lauren thought it would be an ideal time to bring out the nerf gun.

Meaning that foam bullets got stuck to the ceiling, meaning that I had to get up and down from the couch all morning, meaning that my plan to let the kids run wild so that I could relax was NO LONGER WORKING.

But thankfully the nerf phase ended. Lauren took the opportunity write Sam’s name on his face. But his nose got in the way, so until Monday morning, he was “SAN”. Which he didn’t like, but you know what, when you let someone write on your face, that’s what you get. A bad nickname.

After feeling like a low involvement parent for the day, I made it up to them. I brought out the mini marshmallows, heated up a pot of hot chocolate, and we had messy hot chocolate party.

And to be fair, even with a hangover, my day was still pretty awesome. I got to hang out with the kids (it was parallel play, but let’s not split hairs); and I spent the day in my PJs, enjoying a 3PM seasonal ale.

Do I want to repeat it again next weekend? No, but once in a while these days suit me just fine.

Hope you were able to enjoy some holiday action this weekend as well. ‘Tis the season to indulge, regret, and repeat. We only have a few more weeks to go, we can do it. If any of you have any war stories to share from the weekend, let me know in the comments. I know some of you were likewise up to no good….