Dec 18 - Christmas party w/ friends

(l-r) Phillip, Sonia and Ritchie, Chow and Russ, Hilary and Clayton, Danny and Me, Jeff and Brittany, and Michelle (not pictured: Heidi and Brad, they had to leave early)

This is the only picture I have of any of the events we went to, but it was definitely one of the fun ones.  Chow and Russ tend to be the big party throwers amongst our friends (they hosted the Halloween party, amongst many others), but Phillip claimed the right to the Christmas party and it was a lot of fun.  He made it Mexican-themed, so we had a potluck with enchiladas, mexican rice, chips and salsa and queso, etc. and he even had a Christmas-themed pinata  ... that he asked Danny and me to bring ... the day before the party.  -_-  remember all of my overcommiting? ... anyway, finding a pinata in the middle of December wasn't exactly going very well, so we decided to make one instead, but since we only had a day (plus I was pretty busy with all my other diy projects too), so paper mache was out.  I found an idea online of making one out of a cereal box, since the cardboard was sturdy enough to hold candy but thin enough to break.  So Danny helped me piece together two cereal boxes and then gift wrap with a giant bow to make it look like a present.  I wish I'd taken a picture before we busted it open, it turned out a lot nicer than I thought it would, given our time and material contraints.  And, it actually worked!  We had it hanging on a tree and probably a good six or seven people got several good swings at it before it finally fell apart.  (Chow is actually holding a piece of it in here hand in the photo ... not sure why though, lol).

The rest of the party we got to chat and hang out, and we also had a white elephant gift exchange.  That was a lot of fun seeing what people brought and what people fought over.  Some of the funny moments, when someone opened the gift that Heidi and Brad brought - a baseball glove - to which Brad looks at Heidi and says, "hey, that's mine!"  she just said he had tons of them, but he ended up trading later in the game to get it back, haha.  Heavily fought over prizes were some lotions, a tin of cookies, a back massager, some superhero magnets, a monkey snuggie, and a waffle iron (... some people have a different perspective on the whole white elephant concept, I guess).  Other more random items people brought were an old physics textbook, a wine-bottle sweater (Chow took it for her garden gnome), a clown sculpture, a photo frame of Russ, and a CD of singing cats (I ended up winning that one; Danny won the snuggie and was super excited about that one, lol).

All in all, it was a lot of fun though.  It nice to have so many friends who like to get together.  ... too bad half of them have since moved.  ...oh, one other kinda funny story about this, you'll notice in the picture Chow and Hilary are quite pregnant, both were due the following January.  Chow actually went into labor that night and had her baby the next morning!  She was over four weeks early, definitely a surprise (though they had to spend the week in nicu, baby and family are doing great now).  But kinda random to think that this party was her last day pregnant, lol.  Crazy how things turn out sometimes.